need help with gmax (imagine)

[bricks4wings]

Believe it or not i cant get gmax to behave logicaly.( at least to my way of thinking) . Specificly, I'm having gear door troubles.  Mainly they wont work I tried following the stupid idiots guide i found on this site .But apparently I'm more of an ignorant ass.       The plane I'm working on, and Mostly done with.(except this hitch) has four gear doors for each gear.    2 inner, 2 outer. Can anyone tell me what these should be named, Or does it matter.
I also get an error message that the doors have a scale applied and must be removed before exporting. But the only way I can remove the error message is to remove the animation on the doors. AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!!!!
Help please. I beseach you.

[Felix/FFDS]

The gear doors should be named in the l_gear / r_gear sequence, since they are animated as part of the gear animation sequence.

To remove the "scale applied"  select the offending part, then under the hierarchy tab look down and click on "reset scale".  repeat for all offending parts.

[bricks4wings]

Ok that fixed that problem. Thankyou.
but now the gear wont stop rotating where I set them to.

[bricks4wings]

I give up. I just cannot make the gear on this plane behave. It goes to jumping and flopping around all over the place  and i cannot fix it. THE 167 Maryland Bomber project is dead ! I guess Id better work on only fixed gear and float stuff.

[aceronzo]

bricks4wings,Don't giveup.I was the same way,keep at it and if you really love to build it'll be worth it.I'd say check your pivot points,That's what usally makes the wheels,props and soforth jump around.My suggestion would be to make boxes and get use to the program.To this day Gmx still sneaks one in on me!Check your tuts I have to read them 3 or 4 times.
Best Regards,
Ronnie

[Milton]

Winners never quit and quitters never win!  You can beat this thing.  Do it one piece at a time. :-)

Delete the animation keys from the gear parts.
Link all gear parts to l_gear_top in a hierarchic fashion.
Example:
l_gear_top
...l_gear stut
.....l_gear_axle
........l_tire
...........l_wheel
Redo the animation from scratch again.

Each part of the gear has its own pivots, each to be aligned using the LOCAL coordinate system, Affect Pivot Only.

Start at the top gear (ex. l_gear_top), get it working. (frames 0-100; 0=retracted)  Pivot typically aligned with world, then align to the object; set at the top of the object where pivoting should take place.  

Then add the suspension strut (ex. l_gear_bottome) (frames 100-200; 0=extended/hanging)  Pivot typically aligned with world, then center to object, and align with the object so vertical movement is correct.

Then the wheel/tire animated by name only (ex. l_tire).  Align pivot to world, then center to object.

Select the whole gear assemble, export selected to test.

One success at a time is how you master the tool. ;-)

[bricks4wings]

on Your advice, I have went back and reread all the tutorials to see if i was missing something. Completely reworked the gear from scratch, Checked all my pivot points. And lo and behold. It didnt change a dang thing. So if "winners never quit". Then winners have lost there sanity.(especially if they've using GMAX) So if any-one wants to take a crack at figuring out what has gone awry I'll be more than happy to email you the file . But I know my limitations (now). And this is beyond me by a country mile. Thanks for trying to help

[Milton]

I'll be happy to look at it in the spirit of helping to put the fun back into it for you.  Maybe together, we can survive this. ;-)

BTW, I lived in MD most of my life so how could I refuse!! ;-)

[Felix/FFDS]

So if "winners never quit". Then winners have lost there sanity.

Now you've hit on the secret!  (and it doesn't matter whether you use gmax or FSDS!)

[martianfrogz]

I still don't get Gmax, and I've had it for 1+ years.