Constraints and Wiring.

Support Basics & Interface
#1

I’ve done a search on this and there is too little said about constraints. Most of it is revolved around bones and IK solvers, but what about setting hard values that an object cannot do.

Does anyone know of good references for doing this? If I want to do things like keep objects from moving beyond -30 degrees and 45 degrees, do I need to do that through python? If so, what are some good references for that?

Lastly, I was wondering if there is a linking and wiring system like in 3dsm. I would like to make some controller that when I slide it from left to right, so that I could control an arm mechanism that grabs something. Think of those machines you put a quarter in and you control this arm and you have to grab a doll of some sort. I like this in 3dsm because there is a visual bar for this type of thing. Would that be something for python as well?

#2

there is no mechanism to do that

it may be possible with a piston-like mechanisim of several bones, but even that isn’t perfect

[your object needs to be animated for example so that that situation doesn’t happen, or you have to look for other solutions. python could be one but there is no script I know of that does anything similar at the moment]

there is not

#3

well crap. that makes sense on why I couldnt find anything on this :o

#4

i’ve been missing such a feature, too. the only thing that might help is the action constraint. with it you control a predefined animation or a bone via the rotation anlge of a control object ( be it an emty or anything else). check out the documentation on how it works, it’s a bit tricky.

i’ve been often thinking about a parameter wiring script, but since i’m still not a programmer i’ll keep on thinking :wink: at least i know what it could do and how it should behave. if anyone’s interested in writing such a thing i can share my thoughts :slight_smile:

#5

why not just share your thoughts here. I would like to hear them, even if I can or cannot do it. It might give me a really good reason to learn the python scripting :smiley:

#6

well actually i’d love to see two things:

1 - a driven key script, where i can define

  • the driver channel
  • the driven channel
  • set keys for the range of driver/driven
    pretty much the same as in maya

2 - generic animation sliders, which can drive the following:

  • predefined animation of one or more objects and one or more
    of their channels (including translation, RVK, materials etc… everything
    that is animatable)
  • actions

why? it makes an animator’s life so much easier! imagine hand poses:
each pose is a slider. each slider drives the bending action you have to make once. that’s it. now animating a thumb up is as easy as dragging one slider.

not sure about the technical details, but in both cases you need to map a user controlled value from one controller-entity to a channel of the desired driven entity. i was also thinking of somehow using the time-IPO, but this is available AFAIK only for basic object translation.

i hope i can put up some mock-ups soon.

marin

#7

Well, the notion of “an action that you only make once” is basically here now, with Actions and the NLA Editor. But I agree that right now it’s a bit tough to get the animations right. A slider-console of some kind would be quite nice; a “marionette board” if you will.

Is it ready yet? :smiley: