Hello, I have a question in regards to the Align Euler to Vector node. I’m almost embarrassed to ask considering I’ve used nodes for a while, but its always something I have just glossed over.
I understand that when stringing together multiple Align Euler to Vector nodes, the rotation from the first node feeds into the second. However what should be plugged into the first rotation? (ignore the tangent and normal vectors being input, these are just there as place holders.)
I have always tended to leave this blank but I have found it can sometimes cause unpredictable results such as flipping on some setups. Can someone please give some detail on how to handle this first rotation socket properly?
Most of the time, nothing should be plugged into the first rotation socket. It’s just (0,0,0), a starting point.
Here’s a post by Jacques Lucke, a developer who’s making a new node (Axis to Euler) to automate this process, and you can see how he uses the two align nodes:
The first node needs to be auto-pivot, and the second one needs to have its pivot set to whichever axis you set in the first node. They also can’t have the same axis set.
I don’t know if there is a “canonical” way of choosing which axis goes where, but I usually go Z → Y (although sometimes it’s Z → X if you want to replicate the way built-in nodes with rotation sockets work…)
Anyway, enough rambling. Bottom line is that nothing should usually go into the first rotation socket.
The Curve to points generate a rotation output that you can use…
As @Tolkfan said, it’s a starting point and you don’t have to put something there if you don’t need it to.
But sometime you might want to have an initial rotation, like you might want to put a random vector there to have a random rotation, then align it to some vector…
It’s generally not what you want but nothing prevent you from using it from time to time.
