How To: Pilot Head Animation

An interesting question arises on how to animate a pilots head in a YSFlight model. The head movement can be linked to the rudder or elevators or both, or the ailerons. Since it is not obvious how to do this, I came up with a method which I have detailled here. For simplicity I will use a cube

Step 1: Import the model into Blender (2.49b with YSFlight scripts) . Import the pilot figure and the pilot head as separate objects into the model. In this case I have simply created a cube in Blender and moved it to the cockpit position.

The complete model with the cube is exported into .dnm format and opened in DNMVIEWER

Import the A4 into Blender, leave the block in place

The block is at the centre 0 0 0

Open in DNMVIEWER and click and drag the cube to a sub object of the fuselage

Make all STA visible, by clicking in the check box, and add the degree movement to the H values under STA2 and STA3. Test by clicking the STA control tab. The cube CLA should be changed to rudder first

The cube will move left and right when the rudder moves. Put in different angles for left and right movements otherwise the movement will not show.

The only other change is to move the cube down the z axis by inputting a 3 into the Z box

It works smoothly in YSFlight