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Basically i want to make a vehicle with an animation that starts when it takes off, so that the animation (or animated texture) plays in flight and stops when the vehicle lands again. I got a few ideas on how to do this but am not sure where to start.

idea 1 - munging an animation
ive done this and have not gotten the animation to munge. lets not go into details about why, but theoretically if this were to work, would it be possible to define in the odf when this animation should be played?

idea 2 - an animated texture
sort of like the tank wheels although ive never gotten this to work. seems like it would work although with 2 problems - would animate all of the time (at this point if it was the only option it wouldn't matter) and the texture would need to pivot from a central axis instead of scrolling, don't know if this is possible.

idea 3 - an addon geometry
this would be something like the geonosian wings geometry which replaces the static geometry on flight. again, not sure how to set this up properly so it would appear, remove the static geometry and rotate on takeoff.
seems like idea 3 is the most promising but like i said i have no idea where to start.
other caveat is that i need custom sounds for this stuff and no one seems to be able to figure out why my level isnt working properly.

im afraid i cant completely understand you post. do you want all of these things or do you want to have a certain effect and dont know which idea to use?

1st:no, you cant define in the odf when exactly an animation is played. all you can have is a takeoffanim (look in the xsifaq for tutorial) and/or a finanimation/9pose animation which puts the bones in certain poses when you fly in certain directions (look in the xsifaq for tutorial).

2nd: you can only have scrolling textures and im pretty sure treads (scrolling when moveing) works only on hovers.

3rd: vehicles cant have addonmeshes but you can attach an effect as a thrusteffect that will only appear when the flyer isi the aur.

DarthD.U.C.K. wrote:im afraid i cant completely understand you post. do you want all of these things or do you want to have a certain effect and dont know which idea to use?

1st:no, you cant define in the odf when exactly an animation is played. all you can have is a takeoffanim (look in the xsifaq for tutorial) and/or a finanimation/9pose animation which puts the bones in certain poses when you fly in certain directions (look in the xsifaq for tutorial).

2nd: you can only have scrolling textures and im pretty sure treads (scrolling when moveing) works only on hovers.

3rd: vehicles cant have addonmeshes but you can attach an effect as a thrusteffect that will only appear when the flyer isi the aur.

I need the end result to have something that appears animated even if it isnt actually animated when the vehicle is in flight. I think that the 3rd option might work if you say that it will show up in flight. Still dont know exactly if it would work because i dont mean like the engine exhaust thing, that's easy enough to add. What i mean is something like how the shield generator blender is set up in space but would keep spinning even when the flyer is in flight.

Is there any way that you can think of that would make something animate like that in flight... even a hack for it?

yes, its possible. actually its pretty easy to make a something rotate in an effect. you would export the rotating piece as one model and use it as geometry for a particle in particle editor 8theres a tutorial in the xsi faqthread).
i suggest you take a look at particleeditor (theres even a starterguide somewhere) and you will quickly see how to make it rotate. then the effect would be attached as an engineeffect (i misnamed that in my last post).