Clock Tower in Scenery

[Travis]

Can anyone think of a way to create a working clock tower?  I was thinking of using the Tick_18 tag, but that only gives about 53 seconds of animation.

Is there any way to create a clock that would run on the correct local time, with hands that move?

[garymbuska]

Here is a crazy idea. I wonder if you could put a chronometer gauge in a building?  ::)
That might be one way to do it other than that I am not aware of anyother way to do this.

[Travis]

I've been thinking about this one since I posted, and I can't see a way to do it, either.  I mean, the gauge thing wouldn't really work, as you can't insert gauges into the scenery.

There is a program out there called CAT (Conditional Animation Tool) that allows you to animate scenery, so I'm going to mess around with that and see if I can get something out of it.

[garymbuska]

Ok so make a building using Gmax and save it as an aircraft then you can put any gauge you want into it.
I realalise this is a litte strange to say the least but what the heck if you can have flying ships cars and other strange things why not a building. I mean after all you can make a static aircraft that will never fly.

[RollerBall]

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/syb.c ... vaadd3.zip

"This is a utility to add working clocks showing the FS real local time to your scenery. The program also includes a new set of 5 tools to allow you to create dynamic objects based on a given hour and time of the day, or based on the selected radio frequency COM1 or COM2, as well as dynamic windsocks, flags, fountains, water falls and more. Help files and example macros included. The program requires a prior full installation of the NOVA program. NOVA is a shareware program, this utility is free for registered users, for non registered users this addon will only work in demo mode. Help files and file examples are included.By Rafael Garcia Sanchez. 1.6MB"

I spotted this a long time ago but never did anything with it. It's an old download (originally for FS2000 I think) but they have a habit of still working in later versions. You might want to see what's in there in case it's of any interest. I don't know if NOVA is still available as such.

[masmith]

Im not an expert but could you loop the Tick_18 tag?

[Travis]

Im not an expert but could you loop the Tick_18 tag?

Tick 18 will loop automatically.  Whenever the animation is at its end (frame 1000 or so) it will start over again.  Unfortunately, the frames run about 20-25 per second, which means you get less than a minute of full animation, and then the loop goes straight back to the beginning.  So I would get a clock tower that would run a full revolution in one minute, or so.

I want to have the clock run at a steady rate, which will keep time relative to the FS world.  If its 10:27 AM in the sim, I want the clock to read 10:27 AM.  Still working on a possible link-up between the scenery and the actual time of day.