Animation Requirments For Smart VR Manipulators
Manipulators lets you specify how objects in Blender become interactive in X-Plane. In X-Plane 11.1x, you can now specify new manipulators which give a better experience in virtual reality. These new VR manipulators are
Manip Type | Potential Uses |
| Flap handles, parking brakes, simple air vents, or anything that move sin a linear fashion |
| Any Drag Axis application, but with detents to overcome |
| Throttle quadrants, trim wheels, cowl flaps. Any mechanism that rotates around a fixed point |
| Any Drag Rotate application, but with detents to overcome |
These manipulators use animation data to autodetect properties such as X, Y, Z, v1 Min/Max, etc. Dataref 1 and 2 can always be overridden manually. This article describes in detail the requirements for each.
*Drag Axis is an old manipulator now upgraded. Use the Autodetect Settings checkbox to opt in.
Further Reading
Manual Pages
Developer Blog Posts
Manipulators
VR
Example Blend Files
example_vr_manipulator_types.zip This zip of blend files contains a variety of examples of working and not working smart manipulators, taken from the XPlane2Blender test suite. The last layer in each .blend file contains a correct working example. The rest are all the different ways you could get an error. Don't get the wrong idea, these are only some (simple) use cases of the feature.
About "Animation Sources"
The autodetection algorithm requires a certain number of animation sources, of certain types, in a certain order. The algorithm continues looking for animation sources until it fills its requirements, starting at the manipulator's mesh and then inspecting up its parents. This provides flexibility. Animations can appear anywhere in this chain from, including having gaps between and not having the manipulator mesh be the first animation source.
The ...-> indicates 0 or more non-animated meshes or bones are allowed in between.
Type | Animation Requirements (Listed In Expected Order) |
Drag Axis | [Manipulator Mesh]...->Location Animation |
Drag Axis With Detents | [Manipulator Mesh]...->Location (Detent) Animation...->Location Animation |
Drag Rotate | [Manipulator Mesh]...->Rotation Animation |
Drag Rotate With Detents | [Manipulator Mesh]...->Location (Detent) Animation...->Rotation Animation |
Animation Source Rules
Common Animation Rules
Must have one and only one dataref animation
Must have actual movement (no animations of 0 degrees of rotation or 0 meters of movement)
The mesh the manipulator is attached to must not have child datablocks or bones
Location Animation Rules
Must have exactly two non-clamping Location keyframes and no Rotation keyframes
Rotate Animation Rules
Must have exactly two non-clamping Rotation keyframes and no Location keyframes
Must rotate around only one axis of rotation (in any rotation mode)
Dataref keyframe values must be in ascending or descending order
Detent Location Animation Rules
Drag Axis With Detents:
Must have a parent with a valid location animation source
The detent axis must be at 90 degrees from the drag axis
Drag Rotate With Detents:
Must have a parent with a valid location animation source
The detent axis must not be along the rotational axis in any way. To understand why, imagine a wheel that has been welded onto an axle. The axle is along the X axis, therefore the wheel rotates around the X axis. When X-Plane simulates how a mouse drag or VR drag rotates this object, it only calculates how the wheel could possibly move. Therefore any dragging along the X axis is ignored and no detenting in that direction is possible
Must have exactly two non-clamping Location keyframes and no Rotation keyframes
Must have Axis Detent Ranges
For Drag Axis With Detents, the path for Drag Axis can be manually set by turning off "Autodetect Datarefs". It will, however, still use the Location Animation's dataref values. The same applies for Drag Rotate with Detents: the Rotation Axis Dataref and Detent Axis Dataref path can be manually changed, but the dataref values will still be taken from the Location and Rotation Animation.
Drag Rotate Regions
By adding additional rotation and dataref keyframes between the start and end of a Drag Rotate or Drag Rotate With Detents' rotation animation source (see above), X-Plane will automatically adjust how long it takes to drag through those areas. In general, a large range will be slower to drag through, and a small range will be faster to drag through. Manipulators requiring precise changes can be greatly improved by using this feature. In addition, uninteresting portions of a manipulator's range can be made to be dragged through quickly with Drag Rotate regions.
Keyframe # | Degrees | User Experience While Dragging At Constant Speed |
1 | 0 - 90 | Manipulator will rotate slowly through this section |
2 | 90 - 150 | Manipulator will rotate quickly through this section |
3 | 150 - 180 | Manipulator will rotate the quickest through this section |
The speed is also affected by the ratio between degrees and size of dataref change.
Clamping is supported and recommended.
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