[BenDragon1337]

Hey

I was viewing the L1 form the Blender to MSTS exporter files, but I can't figure out how the pantograph was set up in the way it has been.

So I was wondering how do you set up a train pantograph and determine how long it takes to rise.

I was also wondering about setting up multiple keyframes to emulate the way the pantograph rises and bounces on the wire as it contacts.

This leads to a similar topic, which would be plug doors as seen in 1:32, 1:48, 2:51 & 2:58 of the following video: https://youtu.be/2fi0m8ei_B4

[captain_bazza]

Pantograph animation is basically a two frame down/up toggle.

Sliding doors can be animated, but twin doors would be two separate animation parts.

(It is a long time since I animated anything.)

Cheers Bazza.

[BenDragon1337]

Yeah, I just wondered if there could be more then one keyframe, and would it be possible to determine the time that the animation takes, making use of blender's animation curves.

I also wondered about the various type of doors, particularly the plug doors you see on multiple units.
https://youtu.be/2fi0m8ei_B4 The plug doors are at the following timestamps: 0:40, 1:31, 1:41, 2:51 & 2:56.

[captain_bazza]

Thinking backwards to my last effort...

The animation sequence for an electric EMU would be 0 ~ 16 frames. Only frame 0 and frame 16 are used.

Door closed frame 0, door closed at frame 16.

Pantograph up frame 0, pantograph down fram 16.

As long as you set the animation sequence to a total of 17 frames (0 to 16, inclusive) that should suffice.

There is a method to control the speed to make the sequence playback slower by an edit in the ENG file, however, it sets the playback speed for every animated part in the ENG file.

Cheers Bazza.

[captain_bazza]

I am not certain how you specify which car side doors operate platform side.

[RTP]

DOOR_A, DOOR_B, DOOR_C,DOOR_AA;DOOR_C4 etc opens right side doors.
DOOR_D,DOOR_DDD,DOOR_E etc opens left side doors.

Regards.

[BenDragon1337]

 captain_bazza, on 13 November 2017 - 07:49 PM, said:

Thinking backwards to my last effort...

The animation sequence for an electric EMU would be 0 ~ 16 frames. Only frame 0 and frame 16 are used.

Door closed frame 0, door closed at frame 16.

Pantograph up frame 0, pantograph down fram 16.

As long as you set the animation sequence to a total of 17 frames (0 to 16, inclusive) that should suffice.

There is a method to control the speed to make the sequence playback slower by an edit in the ENG file, however, it sets the playback speed for every animated part in the ENG file.

Cheers Bazza.

That's interesting, because traditionally blender allows you to alter the "framerate" of the animation, by default, it's 24 FPS, you can obtain the FPS value from the setting in figure 1A.

Also, when looking at the L1 that came with the tutorial, it only spans 1 frame (Figure 1B) which confused me since when I opened up the .s file, the pantograph raised like normal. I simply couldn't figure it out.
Figure 1:

[captain_bazza]

It could be that Blender does this differently but the <shapename>.S converter puts Blender's output file into MSTS format.

I should have explained that frame 0 is what is referred to as the "key" frame. All animation sequences have a starting "key" frame. It is a binary requirement that such numerical sequences start begin at "0".

Thus your door animation, given the restrictions of a 1990's graphics engine design, and MSTS coding in particular, limits some animations to frame 0 ~ frame 1, total = 2 frames.

Doors: = frame 0 > closed; frame 1 > open.

My experience relates to animating steam locos, with frames 0 ~ 16 = 17 frames. An EMU or DMU power car and/or carriage models might only have 2 frames total, but unless the animation sequence playback speed id slowed, the animation at 24 fps is much too fast for doors (toggled shut/open).

However, as I mentioned in a previous post, you may be able to stretch the number of frames "inbetween" frame 0 (closed) frame 16 (open). (17 frames is a suggestion.) You might still have to adjust the playback rate to further slow down the door action.

Cheers Bazza.

[captain_bazza]

It should be noted that MSTS and OR only allows two types of animation action:

Lateral: anything that "moves" in the same plane, ie, sliding doors, piston crosshead.

Rotational: anything that rotates about an axis point, ie, steam loco drive wheels and rods that rotate about an axis point.

Restrictions:

An animated part cannot be assigned two types of action, ie, lateral and rotational.

An animated part cannot change its shape or dimensions.

........

There are a few tricks to the "trade" to give some flexibility using actions for other purposes - for MSTS, not sure whether this extends to OR's coding. (Sometimes you have to think outside the box. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does; that's part of the "fun".)

Cheers Bazza.

[RTP]

I disagree.
For instance, the upper arm of a pantograph moves and rotates simultaneously.
In my experience, three frames animates a door with correct speed, but six allows for a panto, with some overshoot, like the real ones.

Regards.