16 frames are used to correct the ‘bumping’ effect on the piston connecting rod you get with 8 frames. It is far less with 16 and I have a version of the plugin that does 24 frames.
If there is no piston connecting rod (i.e. inside valve gear) then 8 frames is just as smooth as 16.
Hi…
I spent a few hours last night trying to work through my first export… Some success – but not great…
First I tried to do the export by hand – as per Pauls tutorial… I ran the wizard to generate the ACE / ENG / CAB / SOUND folders… While I did get a successful shape file – something must have been corrupted as the shape would not open in Shape File Viewer… When attempting to open the shape – even the track base was not visible – no shape ever loaded… No error messages…
Next I tried doing it via the wizard and the parts selection process… This time I did get a shape I could view in SFV – however I had some real problems… The groups in the hiarchy – I worked so hard to organize – seemed all mangled… The engine was situated in the verticle – so that the track split the boiler in half… The wheels were actually about 8 feet below track level… When I animate the shape – one connecting rod rotated appropriately – the other made huge circles around the entire engine… Also the walkway around my boiler rotated as a connecting rod should… Pretty funny stuff – eh ?
Well I have gone back to the old drawing board – so to speak… I built a new model – using Pauls awesome plug-in… Quicky skinned it and exported it by hand… That one worked fine… So I am guessing I have a problem with naming conventions – or – maybe I moved something around inadvertantly in the hiarchy…
I guess I will need to look very carefully at the hiearchy tonight… Sound right ???
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On the subject of wheels and POLY counts… I did some experimentation… I used my original settings for the Engineer plugin with a few changes…
Square Wheels = 1700 POLYS
Round Wheels – No Spokes = 3500 POLYS
Fully Detailed Wheels = 5100 POLYS
I had a thought – has anyone tried to use ‘Round Wheels – No Spokes’ then ALPHA the spokes in… Seems like it may be a good compromise between good shape and lower POLY’s… I would get a good flanged wheel with spokes at a considerable saving of POLY’s… Should this work ???
Man – I wish I could buy you guys a beer or something… I really appreciate all the hand holding… <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="
" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
Regards,
Scott
OBTW – that Butt to Object plug-in is a GREAT help…
<!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
I GOT IT – REALLY !!! My first export… Yahoo… It seems 3DC did not like the groupings I had on the objects – like the default ones that came after using the handrail plug-in… I undid all the groups except for the ones the ‘Engineer’ plugin made – – made sure all the objects had unique names (not sure if that matters) then placed the objects back in the ‘main’ group and everything worked… Great feeling to see the shape finally load and the animations work…
On to the pistons – gulp…
<!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
Regards,
Scott
Numbers and names of Groups shouldn’t matter – except that groups and texture names must never contain spaces.
The wizard does reorganize your groups for you if you use the part identification.
I tend to just use it for positioning smoke and setting up the initial folder and SD files.
For that I usually copy the 3DC file first, then use the copy to do the wizard export.
Subsequent exports are just done with the right click option on the original file and AceIt (does a better job than makeace/tgatool)
Pistons and valve gear is not really a problem when using the plugin, provided you get the group hierarchy and pivot points correct.
It may be worthwhile practising the plugin with just a few basic objects (cylinder for the wheel, rod and piston etc) – I may even write another small tutorial at some point. I think I detailed it fairly well in my steam loco tutorial – it’s a lot simpler and more accurate than all the other modelling tools.
one I did today <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][font size=’-1′]quote:[/font][HR] one I did today [HR][/BLOCKQUOTE]
Hi Paul,
Was there supposed to be an image with your last ???
Regards,
Scott
doh – exceeded the 80K with an animated gif… here’s just a jpg of my 2-2-0 loco with outside valve gear !
Hi,
Having some difficulty… I need to post an image before I explain… Not sure if I am posting image correctly..
See if this works..
Regards,
Scott
Well – Once again one step forward and two steps back… With Paul’s tutorial in hand – and – dragging up old threads regarding rod animation – I took the plunge… Man – I was dreading this part – I think I’d rather be at the dentist… lol… <!– s;) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="
" title="Wink" /><!– s;) –>
While I did get some movement of different parts at times – I did not get it to work all together…
As per the picture above – I only need to animate two objects… Yellow – Piston Rod – Blue – Piston… Sounds simple eh…
I tried to follow the procedure as closely as possible as it applied to my model… I read and I believe I understood the prerequisites…
Piston Rod must be subset of ‘Wheel Two’ on my model…
Piston – is not a subset of ‘Wheel Two’ but part of ‘Main’….
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First I created the components in place – much as the above image shows…
Then I dragged the ‘Piston Rod’ group and placed it under ‘Wheel Two’… If I recall the procedure – I then ran the shift center plug-in as per the tutorial… This moved the ‘Piston Rod’ and seemed to center it on the axle of ‘Wheel Two’…
I then followed the procedure for the ‘Piston’ objects… It was getting late and I tried playing with different things to work…
The strangest problem I seemed to encounter most – was that the ‘Connecting Rod’ annimations in the ‘Wheel Three’ group broke… The connecting rod annimation – would disconnect from ‘Wheel Two’ and ‘Wheel One’ and swing wildly around ‘Wheel Three’… Like the bearing froze…
The ‘Piston Rod’ seemed to get the correct annimation – however – it was still centered on the ‘Wheel Two’ group… I tried moving it – new export – but it stayed in the same spot…
The ‘Piston Group – was doing something – but – it was like flashing so fast I could not tell what type of motion it had…
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I suspect all my problms have something to do with the ‘Shift Center’ operation… I do not understand exactly what it is doing… It looks like all objects have ‘Pivot Points’.., I have seen screenshots with ‘red – blue – green axis available – but how do you change the ‘Pivot Point’ of an object…
I must be missing something somewhere…
I am not sure if I am explaing this well…
<!– s:( –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_sad.gif" alt="
" title="Sad" /><!– s:( –>
Thanks,
Scott
OBTW – WOW Paul – that looks like one complicated piece of hardware…
Regards,
Scott
<!– s:D –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt="
" title="Very Happy" /><!– s:D –>
I GOT IT – whew…
The all important ‘Shift Center’ was what I was missing…
Rod Animations – piece of cake… Joking – took me about 10 hours to figure it out…
Regards,
Scott
Now you’ve done it once, it gets much simpler and you can do some really complex motions.
Have you seen my SECR O1 loco? Stephensons valve gear and pistons located between the frames – would have been hell to animate manually <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
All,
Paul – I would very much like to see some of your more complex annimations… Can you provide a link ?
While I chose a relatively simple steam locomotive for my first attempt at 3D modeling – my intent is to hone my skills for more complex locomotives… I would like to be able to do a decent job on some of the newer, larger, more complex US steam locomotives… Hudsons, Berks, and maybe even that Mallet… <!– s;) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;) –>
TUTORIAL QUESTION: On your tutorial – you stated to give a -2.9 Rotation parameter for the PISTON group… What does this parameter actually do ?
GENERAL STEAM QUESTION: I have another cylinder right above my piston cylinder… I am guessing this is some sort of control for the piston ? Would anyone know what it does – and – does the rod going into it require additional annimation ???
Thanks…
Scott
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