Prop animation

[frankr]

Can the prop animation be changed? Steve Myers' Ryan SC-W prop animation is something to be desired. (Sorry, Steve.)

I like flying this plane but the 3D view is like looking through two whirling 10 pins.

Thanks in advance.

Frank Rutt.......

[Admin]

In some aircraft you'll find a prop.bmp in the texture folder. You can swap those around with some luck. In other models the prop texture is part of a larger group of textures. Those would require some repainting skills.

[frankr]

Thanks Tom.

I did the swap of texture folders to no avail. And I have no repainting skills (at this time). I'm still trying to repaint Bill's Stinson. Guess I'll live with the whirllng 10 pins.

[snuffy]

Okay I'll bite again and most likely show my ignorance. (after all I have Chode for an avatar!)

You have a model of a prop blade or two or three, mebbe four on a hub of some sort. You also have an axis about which this hub assembly is supposed to rotate.

Yet people insist on cutting the blades off and inserting a non realistic looking "disc" with some smudged lines on it to represent a turning blade assembly. What's up with that?

You have after all an entire hub assembly, why can a program not be told to rotate that assembly about that axis at 3500 or more RPM? I mean what's the difficulty?

No you don't have to model the blades to represent the rotation of the blades for syncronious work with the prop controls, you obvioulsy don't do it with a flimisy "disc" drawing.

But I would think that an actual real live, 3D modeled prop assembly would look more realistic rotating about the prop shaft axis than a "disc" does.

And chances are that if this assembly can be rotated, you are less likely to have "prop disappearances" because the "disc" don't show.

Sorry, I'm a mechanical engineer and I tend to think in terms of "reality" ... when I animate a mechanical assembly design on any of my machinery, I don't replace certain 3D modeled solids with unrealistic whirrley gigs to represent motion. I move the actual parts.

Why can't this be done in flight sims?

[Admin]

snuffy said:

Why can't this be done in flight sims?

It can in theory, but at a cost of course. In simulation, everything ends up being a balance of wants vs needs and wows vs bummers.

FS9 comes on 4 CDs but still lacks what some people think is essential. Like my only desire, complete, accurate worldwide hydrography. But I know approximately how many more CDs that would require so I am content to add Ultimate Terrain.

However, a true animated spinning prop is not an available option in FS9 so we do the best we can. And that means "propdisk.bmp"

I might also point out that until just 7 short years ago, a spinning prop was represented by a hexagonal line and we were thrilled to have that.

IF FS10 contains everything everyone wants it will ship on 10 DVDs and cost more than most of us can afford.

As it stands right now, MSFS is the ONLY sim that models the entire world and I would not trade that for anything. Not even my hydrography

[simonovman]

I don't even want to think what a prop like that would do to frame rates.

[snuffy]

simonovman said:

I don't even want to think what a prop like that would do to frame rates.

I don't think it does.
Think back to ye olde B-17II ... start up one of them cyclones and watch the prop "textures".

When you view it from the side, you see the thickness of the blade in the spinning "prop disc".

[mick]

Hmmmmm....

What if you fiddled with the line "prop_anim_ratio= " in the aircraft,cfg file???

Just a thought...