My first breakthrough, twin rotating props!
My first breakthrough, twin rotating props!
My first steps into the world of 3D modeling. It started out simply enough, build a giant twin engine bomber. There was just one problem, no one knew how to get the second set of props to function in MMP. It didn't take long before I found the secret and here you see an early version of a German bomber called the FDHG3 with both props spinning. It was my first real challenge in mastering the complex set of files that make up one of the best flight simulators ever created.
The trick to getting both props to rotate was in renaming the second prop animation with the same extension as the first prop sequence. You'll need 3D Studio or some other 3D modeling program to access the names for each part. The primary prop sequence is named prop.aa to prop.az, so just name your second prop sequence to something like prop2.aa to prop2.az and you'll have twin props that work!
That's right you can do more then just make a prop spin if you like to experiment a little. I've animated exhaust flames, scarfs, pennants, wings and even the rear gunners head. Here are a couple of screenshots showing the results of that work.
I used the gunflash graphics here as a simple exhaust flame.
I used the planes flame bitmaps for this animation of the exhaust flame.
Here the animation was used for a pilots silk scarf and as a squad leader pennant.
To make any animation based on the prop sequence you need to understand how they work. The sequence is made up of twenty six cells (name.aa to name.az), the first twenty are played at engine startup Only! The last six are played in a continous loop while the engine is running. All of the animations you see above here had blank cells for the first 20 frames and then 6 frames containing the graphics I wanted to display. You can of course make use of those first frames to begin your animation, if you care to draw all of the bmps needed. I'm not an artist so I decided to forego the pleasure.
In this shot you actually see two animations at work. First the wings are using the prop animation , second the flame is using the guns animation. To get the wings to show all the time, even when the engine is off I made 25 copies of the original mesh and left 20 of them in place. The last 6 were then repositioned above and below those copies to simulate the wing actually moving (thats right they flap!). The flame is tied to the trigger so it's actuated only when you fire. The naming convention of the trigger is really quite simple (name.qa, name.qb) since it has only two states (off, on). The first cell (off) is a small all black (0,0,0) bitmap so nothing shows when the trigger is not depressed.
Created: Saturday, December 02, 2000