[Gman347]

I know that I am way out of my depth but hanging around here pushes one to try such things.

I have built a model of a turntable that I am trying to animate with no success.




The model was created in Blender and I have set up the hierarchy so that there are basically three components. The object I call "MAIN" which is the square pier upon which the table is supported, an object I call "Pit", which includes the base, the perimeter walls and the rail and ties for the table, and an object I call "Table", which is the part that should rotate. In Blender, when I grab the item I call Table, all of the components rotate together within the pit as desired. I exported the model to an MSTS shape file and added the following animation code:

animations ( 1
animation ( 3600 30
anim_nodes ( 1
anim_node Table (
controllers ( 1
tcb_rot ( 3
slerp_rot ( 0 0 0 0 1 )
slerp_rot ( 1800 0 0.9999822 0 5.95526E-03 )
slerp_rot ( 3600 0 0 0 1 )
)
)
)
)
)
)


When I open the model in shape viewer and animate it the entire model is rotating. I have read the previous posts about animating turntables and thought that I understood what needed to be done, but obviously I don't. I did search around for a detailed guide on animating models but so far have only found bits and pieces so I am simply "cold copying" that code into the file.
Certainly not my preferred way of doing such things. Can someone please help?



Paul http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

P.S. Does anyone know of a good, detailed guide on the code in shape files that deals with animation?

[ebnertra000]

What I did when I made the replacement for the 42m table was copy the animation section from the 27m turntable file in the OR docs folder (one of those .zips in the sample files section). I also made mine with only two parts: TRACKPIECE for everything that moved and BASIN for everything that didn't. This is because those are the part names that the 27m animations reference and thus I could just drop them into my .s file after I built the turntable and go. If you go this route, I would make some dummy animation so you know where to put the animation at the end of the file

[jared2982]

Sounds like a hierarchy issue. I don't know how blender handles this but it would seem that either your table is set as the main object or the animation was applied to the whole model.

[Sandy River Tom]

Jared - you may have the answer in heirarchy.
IIRC, any Objects that are "children" of MAIN, become part of MAIN in the .s file.
What I've done for years is make a second "main" that I name Mn2 and make a child of MAIN
Then all other objects are made children of Mn2 and they remain separate.

In the case of the Turntable, the hierarchy would be:

MAIN
...|--Mn2
........|--Pit
........|--Table

HTH . . .

[Gman347]

Quote

the animation was applied to the whole model

Jared,

That certainly seems to be what is happening.

Here is the hierarchy as it shows in Blender:





'MAIN' is the parent and 'Pit' and 'Table' are the children. In Blender if I rotate 'MAIN' both 'Pit' and 'Table' rotate with it. But if I rotate 'Pit' or 'Table' they each move alone and the other two elements remain static. So in the model the hierarchy is is working correctly. It seems that something is happening in the export.

It seems to make no difference whether I apply the animation to 'MAIN' or to 'Table'. In either case the entire model rotates.



Tom,

I tried your suggestion, it sounded like a good idea, but it made no difference. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif



P.S.

Tom,

I hope your presence on the site is an indicator that your wife is doing well. I will continue to keep her in my prayers.

[wellsburg]

Hi,

Maybe this is getting too complicated. I have many successful turntable installations
with all stationary parts non-grouped under Main. All movable parts in a group called Wheel1 and a child of Main.
This is compiled to the .s using 3DCrafter but should make no difference how one gets to the .s

I suspect that the problem is with the animation code. Here is what 3DC generates.

animations ( 1
animation ( 3599 30
anim_nodes ( 2
anim_node MAIN (
controllers ( 0
)
)
anim_node WHEEL1 (
controllers ( 2
tcb_rot ( 5
slerp_rot ( 0 0 0 0 1 )
slerp_rot ( 900 0 -0.7071068 0 0.7071067 )
slerp_rot ( 1800 0 1 0 -1.629207E-07 )
slerp_rot ( 2700 0 0.7071066 0 0.7071069 )
slerp_rot ( 3600 0 0 0 1 )
)

)
)
)
)
)
)

Note that there are two animation nodes. One with no actual animation MAIN and second actual animation WHEEL1 .

The first animation node is missing in Paul's code example. Trim the turntable back to a Main and Wheel1, compile
to an .s, then append the above code to the end of the .s .

Mike

Sandy River Tom, on 09 September 2017 - 12:19 PM, said:

Jared - you may have the answer in heirarchy.
IIRC, any Objects that are "children" of MAIN, become part of MAIN in the .s file.
What I've done for years is make a second "main" that I name Mn2 and make a child of MAIN
Then all other objects are made children of Mn2 and they remain separate.

In the case of the Turntable, the hierarchy would be:

MAIN
...|--Mn2
........|--Pit
........|--Table

HTH . . .

[Gman347]

OK Guys,

I got it to work... http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/yahoo.gif In shape viewer... http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif Testing it in-sim is yet to come.

I got Blender to generate animation code in the shape file by adding a bone to the model and using it to define the rotation. But there was an additional catch. When I added the bone its longitudinal axis was vertical. I thought OK I want to rotate about that axis. But the vertical axis of the model is Z and the longitudinal axis of the bone is Y. Since the axes didn't match, when I tried to rotate the table about the Z axis it wouldn't work. So I had to rotate the bone 90 degrees to get its Z axis vertical. Once the axes matched I could do the rotation and define the animation in the model and export it. Simple, Huh? http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/ko2.gif It still didn't rotate properly on initial export but I edited the code lines to match the OR sample and voila, rotating smooth as silk.


Thanks guys for your help. Now the next step, get it into the sim. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif


What a nice relaxing hobby! http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif

[ErickC]

The .s format recognizes bones? I'll have to remember that...

[Gman347]

I wish I could tell you more about how this worked but at this point in time my knowledge is way too limited. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wtf01.gif All I know is that when I created the model with no animation I could not successfully add the animation to the exported .s file. By adding the bone and animating the table in the model the exported .s file included animation code which I was able to modify to make the table rotate as intended for OR. I suppose this is no different from any model that requires animation. Bones would be required in the model to achieve proper animation so while the .s file may not specifically recognize bones, as such, they are needed for the .s file to be properly formatted.

[Jovet]

It doesn't matter so much what the hierarchy looks like in Blender. It matters what it looks like in something like Shape Viewer.

[Gman347]

Well this is how the hierarchy appears in shape viewer.




Once the model was complete and exported to a shape file I edited the animation section as follows:


animations ( 1
animation ( 3600 30
anim_nodes ( 2
anim_node MAIN (
controllers ( 0
)
)
anim_node bone (
controllers ( 1
tcb_rot ( 5
slerp_rot ( 0 0 0 0 1 )
slerp_rot ( 900 0 0.7071068 0 0.7071067 )
slerp_rot ( 1800 0 1 0 -1.629207E-07 )
slerp_rot ( 2700 0 -0.7071066 0 0.7071069 )
slerp_rot ( 3599 0 0 0 1 )

With this sequence in place the table rotates counterclockwise in shape viewer as it should. So all seemed to be OK.

I have made the length of my model to match that of the original table (n1t16mturntable.s) with the intention of simply replacing the original table with my model. I first replaced the file as planned and ran MSTS. The new model showed up in the correct locations and I could drive a train over them so apparently the replacement worked OK. I also opened the route in OR and likewise could see the tables and operate trains over them but I had not yet added turntables.dat in the OR folder so the tables were still not operable. Once I could see the tables OK in OR I added turntables.dat to the route's OpenRails folder. There are two occurrances of the table so turntables.dat looked as follows:



2
Turntable(
WFile ( "w-012382+014172.w" )
UiD ( 182 )
XOffset ( 0 )
YOffset ( 0 )
ZOffset ( 8.043 )
TrackShapeIndex ( 39941 )
Animation ( "TRACKPIECE" )
Diameter ( 16 )
)
Turntable(
WFile ( "w-012372+014220.w" )
UiD ( 435 )
XOffset ( 0 )
YOffset ( 0 )
ZOffset ( 8.043 )
TrackShapeIndex ( 39941 )
Animation ( "TRACKPIECE" )
Diameter ( 16 )
)

The first line is blank as required.

When I run Open Rails with the turntables.dat file in place I get the following error in the OpenRails.log file:

Warning: System.IO.FileLoadException: {TileX:-12382 TileZ:14172 X:892.288 Y:1983.84 Z:191.124} scenery object 182 failed to load ---> System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array.

The turntables are no longer visible in the route, makes sense, the shape failed to load per the message. If I remove the turntables.dat file rendering the turntables static I can see them again. So the problem seems to be related to the animation, or am I wrong?

Can anyone offer advice?

I am attaching the log file for review if needed. There are other issues reported but I am thinking they are not related to the current problem. I didn't create the route originally and wasn't aware of the problems within the route until this problem arose.

[wellsburg]

Paul,

I see a couple of issues. There needs to be a blank line after the initial 2. The Animation name "TRACKPIECE" does not match the Hierarchy name "Armature".
Give the modified version below a whirl.

Mike


2
Insert blank line here
Turntable(
WFile ( "w-012382+014172.w" )
UiD ( 182 )
XOffset ( 0 )
YOffset ( 0 )
ZOffset ( 8.043 )
TrackShapeIndex ( 39941 )
Animation ( "Armature" )
Diameter ( 16 )
)
Insert blank line here
Turntable(
WFile ( "w-012372+014220.w" )
UiD ( 435 )
XOffset ( 0 )
YOffset ( 0 )
ZOffset ( 8.043 )
TrackShapeIndex ( 39941 )
Animation ( "Armature" )
Diameter ( 16 )
)

[Gman347]

The extra blank spaces are a surprise to me. They are not included in the examples posted by Carlo or in the OR manual. My understanding was that the first line of the data file, before the "2" needed to be a blank. The mis-name of the animation is definitely operator error. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/sign_oops.gif I should have caught that myself! I will make the changes and give it a try.

Thanks Mike. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/sign_thank_you.gif

[wellsburg]

Paul,

You are correct. The line space is necessary at top of file only. :sign_oops:

Mike

[Gman347]

Quote

The Animation name "TRACKPIECE" does not match the Hierarchy name "Armature".

That fixed it Mike! That was a silly mistake on my part. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wallbash.gif I should have caught that. This is a case where it's good to have a friend helping on a project. The extra pair of eyes can find such things much more quickly.

Thanks Again. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/sign_thank_you.gif