[Hi Just wanted to ask/check something for discussion and ultimately feature request purposes.]
In Houdini you can set any variable or parameter to a formula or code like reference.
I guess they call it “Parameter Expressions” http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/network/expressions.html
I don’t see any example or talk of that in Blender. Does it exist?
As a simple example maybe I associate the position in x of SphereA with the scale in y of SpehereB.
It would be nice to enter into the field of the inspector of sphereB’s scale y a programmatic reference to SphereA.x or I guess it’s SphereA.location[0], which should have a usable reference Sphere.location.x as well as that one you get if you hover the pointer over it. Actually it displays bpy.data.object[“SphereA”].location[0]
So you should be able to type something like
bpy.data.object[“SphereB”].location[0] in the field bpy.data.object[“SphereA”].scale[0]
Please do explain how a less intuitive and way less acceptable solution might exists in Animation Nodes if you wish, thanks. I/We would be looking for the simplest way to make the associate and have it called per frame.
Not one where you make a sphere object in AN, because it could be object.
Normally or originally in houdini they made there own quick script reference stuff like the link shows $F so includes dollar sign variable referencing to some global namespace.
Later they added python scripting reference, which is better because it’s more powerful doesn’t add clutter and other knowledge/skills http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/hom/expressions.html
This they call HOM.
One way to address this instead of interpreting dollar signs is to allow a back-tick quoting (via same key as tilde ``), which contains python script to be interpreted.
How far off is Blender from being able to make this functional (aka procedural), if it can’t already?
I see Copy Drivers Add Drivers? I’m not sure you can for example add a formula to multiple by another reference etc.
Location of the object I can get to show the Expression: as the value from copying the driver. Like you see the value, but it doesn’t do anything or update, or show what the driver was/is? This needs to be more procedural.
Any thoughts about all this would be appreciated. I’m sure it’s not been clearly thought through and needs further discussion or clarity etc.