Animate piston/rods plugin still not working properly in 8

They should always be paired, even in 3DC 8. If not, let me know.

The plugin will animate the wheels, but will not the rods as wheel links. The rods just rotate 360 degrees with the wheels. And when I play the animation for the first time, I get the following errors.

Run-time error ‘30010’ Invalid Column Value
Run-time error ‘440’ Automation error

After closing these out, I get

Run-time error ‘2147418105(80010007) Automation error The callee(server[not server application]) is not available and disappeared; all connections are invalid. The call may have executed.

At which point, 3DC locks up and I have to do a Ctrl-Alt-Del and bring up the Task Manager to exit the program.

If I saved the model before playing the animation the first time, then after reopening it in 3DC, it does not crash while playing the animation. But, the rods are still not animated properly. This problem existed in the previous builds of version 8.

7.1.2 animates the rods of the same model properly.

I installed Paul’s plugins for 8.1.5 and the Animate rods/pistons plugin is still not functioning correctly, when animating a rod as a wheel link. (Assuming it was included in this update.) However, when manually animating the rod, I found that I only had to animate the first 8 frames (of 16). The last 8 frames were animated correctly. So, the plugin is working to some extent. Also, I did not receive the error messages or experience the lock up after playing the animation.

I think I have this corrected for the next release. But, I can’t say with 100% certainty.

I’m getting this exact problem with the latest build.

New scene, run train sim engineer, select 0-6-0 switcher and build.
Then play animation immediately.

I think there was a message about material at one point.

The animation bar is cross hatched, so the crash is probably in that user control.

That should be easy to track down, I hope.

Ok. I’ve reproduced it. The animation works, but at the end produces an error.

These are two different bugs. Paul refers to the Train Sim Engineer, but the bug I reported above refers to the Animate Piston/Rods plugin. This bug still exists in build 1386. (At least on my system.)

Argh…

Looks like I have to work on animation some more. I’ll concentrate on it for the next while. It seems to be the weakest area right now.

I have the problem Paul identified fixed now.

I have this resolved for the next release. (Definitely! <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>)

Definitely fixed.

There is now a small bug with the train sim engineer I’ll try and get fixed before the next release.
With V7 the translation and rotation key frames were always paired, I’m not sure this is true now.