Using Firepower with 4-wheeler ext

[DizyDevil]

I'm trying to make a pickup truck whose suspension "bounces" when things are thrown into the back of the truck. It seems the best way to do this is to create a firepower object and then essentially fire the gun in order to make the vehicle recoil. Could someone please tell me the correct way to set it up? I read another post on here that says to "choose as input the firePower's virtual input to drive the external force, also parent the externalForceMesh to the turret".

I'm a newbie and I'm trying to understand exactly how to do that.

Here's what i tried to do:
1)Open 4-wheeler extended's input settings
For "External Force Response Factor"I choose Advanced>Device>Firepower_01
For "External Force Response Factor"I choose Advanced>Control>fire Trigger
For "External Force Maximum"I choose Advanced>Device>Firepower_01
For "External Force Maximum"I choose Advanced>Control>fire Trigger

2)On Firepower's Input Settings:
I assigned Fire to "f" on the keyboard

3)In the viewport, I turned Firepower_01_gun to face upward

4)Parent linked 4WheelerExt_01_ExternalForceMesh to Firepower_01_barrel

When I record the animation, 4Wheeler Force Mesh moves correctly up and down like a piston. BUT, it doesn't seem to have any effect on the Truck. I've loaded the "Very Bad Suspension" preset for the truck, so I feel that it should definitely be reflected in the animation.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,
B

[DizyDevil]

Okay, my mistake was pretty obvious:

Should have tied the Firepower object to "External Force" and not the other stuff...

Mission Accomplished.

[Enigma229]

I'm just trying to get the Firepower object to create a recoil to a 4-wheeler ext object and both the manuals and what is said above are not making sense to me. Could somebody explain how to achieve this?

[Enigma229]

Ahhh! I figured it out.


BTW-Will there be a manual for the helicopter and Auto Zoom Cam anytime soon?

[Carl Buhre]

Ahhh! I figured it out.


BTW-Will there be a manual for the helicopter and Auto Zoom Cam anytime soon?

Great to hear you solved it. The help documentation for Craft AutoZoomCam will be included in the next Craft Director Tools bundle release (expected to be released today). This version of Craft Director Tools will include offline help documentation along with a new design of the help documentation.

The help documentation for Craft Helicopter is coming.

[Enigma229]

With the helicopter, I took a high poly model and did then did the following:
-broke it down into three parts (body, main rotor, rear rotor)
-added the helicopter object
-scaled and aligned to roughly to fit the high poly model
-linked the high poly blades and body to the appropriate helicopter objects

When I hit record, the blades looked like they were in sync and it flew!

Could you please tell me if I am missing a step?

[Carl Buhre]

With the helicopter, I took a high poly model and did then did the following:
-broke it down into three parts (body, main rotor, rear rotor)
-added the helicopter object
-scaled and aligned to roughly to fit the high poly model
-linked the high poly blades and body to the appropriate helicopter objects

When I hit record, the blades looked like they were in sync and it flew!

Could you please tell me if I am missing a step?

Are you sure you didn't accidentally link/parent the dummy body to one of the rotors? Take a look at your hierarchy and make sure that everything is correct. Here's an image of a rig I just did that worked:

[Enigma229]

Yeah, that is pretty similar. Could you post a screenshot with the full the hierarchy so I could see what else is rigged?

Would there be a recoil effect on the chopper by adding a Firepower/Missile to it?

[Carl Buhre]

Yeah, that is pretty similar. Could you post a screenshot with the full the hierarchy so I could see what else is rigged?

That's it. The rest of the screenshot is just more meshes part of the HelicopterHPbody group.

Would there be a recoil effect on the chopper by adding a Firepower/Missile to it?

At the moment there is no such feature of Craft Helicopter. I don't know what kind of helicopter you're building but if you check out some videos of military helicopters firing missiles and such there is not much of a visual recoil effect.

[Enigma229]

At the moment there is no such feature of Craft Helicopter. I don't know what kind of helicopter you're building but if you check out some videos of military helicopters firing missiles and such there is not much of a visual recoil effect.

I just thought the same thing after posting. Rockets like Hydro 70 on the Apache would not create much of a recoil.

Is there a way to attach it to a landing pad to land the chopper?

I have some friends who work for Bell in Dallas. I'm surprised they are not using these tools!

[Jacob Runnerström]

Excellent! Maybe you'd want to give me a hand and recommend us

-Jacob

[Luigi Tramontana]

Hi Enigma.

During the spring these kind of improvements will begin to arrive en mass.

Meanwhile you will have to do the following if you wish to generate realistic landings (or crashes for that matter).
Animate the helicopter and try to land as good as possible on the pad, but let the helicopter penetrate the pad.
Stop the recording and rewind to a point exactly before the heli touches ground and let maya dynamics/n-particles or max Reactor take over.
By keeping the gravity low you will acheive a fairly realistic landing.