Dupliframes and "No Speed" button

Can anyone explain a situation where this button is used and what difference it makes. The manual says:

The “DupliFrames” are set to ‘still’, regardless of the current frame.

Which doesn’t really explain anything – at least to me. I have never come across a situation where pressing this button made any difference to my dupliframed objects. Note that I usually use dupliframes in conjunction with paths and certainly haven’t used them in all possible contexts.

Thanks in advance
GreyBeard

You’re right it doesn’t explain anything :slight_smile:

What the No Speed does, is prevent the dupliframes from taking the speed Ipo of a path into consideration when duplicating out the objects (i.e. having ‘No Speed’ on will distribute the objects evenly along the path, regardless of the Speed Ipo). Best way to describe it is with an example: http://mke3.net/blender/etc/nospeed.blend.zip

Select the cube and try turning No Speed on or off.

Hi GreyBeard

Working on your DupliFrames tutorial, huh? Great Stuff

I think the tool tip is interpreted as " being used in a static application /ignore the speed ipo curve and make all the dupliframed objects evenly spaced", as opposed to an animation application where you want the object moving in an ease in/ease out movement (Such as a case where you might be animating a car moving along a path - you wouldn’t want the car to snap from 0 to 60 mph at the start and 60 to 0 mph coming to a stop, now would we :slight_smile: ).

A quick example:

[>] Default Scene
[>] Add Curve>Path and scale it by 10; switch to Object mode
[>] Parent the cube to the path, Select “Normal Parent” from the Popup menu, clear the origin of the cube (Alt_O) so it snaps to the start of the path
[>] Switch to Object Buttons [F7] and with the cube selected activate ‘Dupliframes’
[>] Way too many Cubes to see what is happening, so increase the ‘DupOff’ setting to about 10 to 12. Notice how at the start and end of the path the cubes are closer together - that’s because of the ease in/ease out speed ipo curve of the Path (which you can view in the IPO curve Window)
[>] Now press the ‘NoSpeed’ button and see how your DupliFramed objects are all evenly spaced. (You can turn up the ‘DupOff’ setting a bit, if you’d like). Basically, a quick way to create evenly spaced objects like railway ties, highway curve posts, etc.

Thanks for your answers!! I feel that they have made a real dog’s breakfast of the whole path setup.

  1. Create a “Path” object and a speed ipo is created automatically for you. Create any other curve and no speed ipo is created. The “PathLen” setting only works if no there is no speed ipo present (exception see 3 below)

  2. If a “Follow Path” constraint is used the CurvePath and CurveFollow buttons (located by PathLen) as well as the “No Speed” buttons are overridden.

  3. If the “No Speed” button is pressed and a “Follow Path” constraint doesn’t exist then the PathLen setting works again.

What I was doing (as long a I can remember) was parenting with the Follow Path option which created a constraint which disabled the No Speed button. To evenly space objects I set the extend mode of the speed IPO.

There are just too many side effects between buttons and too many ways to do the same thing. If paths were only done by using the follow path constraint. The PathLen, CurvePath, CurveFollow and No Speed buttons could all disappear :smiley:

Thanks again,
GreyBeard