Expressions: How to avoid setAttr when...

[brubin]

Originally posted by prettyh8machine
Hi,
How to avoid setAttr command in a dynamic expression in this scenario: (I know using setAttr is not recommended in an expression)
WHY?


...

Any help ?

i created a simple scene with 3 regular spheres.
i want the selected sphere to bounce up and down while i'm playing back
so i created this expression:
>
string $aSels[]; $aSels = `ls -sl` ;
string $sel = $aSels[0] ;
string $atr ; $atr = ($sel+".ty") ;
setAttr $atr `sin(time)` ;
<
create that with any name and hit play. make sure there's always one object selected. et voila!

does that help? i'm not sure whether your question is 100% clear... and i don't understand your concern, really...

HIH
s.

[prettyh8machine]

Its clearly written everywhere that setAttr in a dynamic expression can cause abnormal behavior. Also you get cycleCheck warning etc. so using setAttr in a per particle dyanamic expression is out of question (atleast should be avoided). So now the concern really is:
how to use "object.attribute = something" instead of "setAttr object.attribute something" when object is a variable ??

In your example, maya evaluates setAttr by taking its arguments as strings while in a dynamic epxression, it expects the left hand side of the .attribute to be a valid object instead of a string since its no MEL, so you get the point.

Any help

[macaroniKazoo]

the expression sytax for setAttr is simply:

pCube.rotation = 10;

for your example, you look like you're trying to iterate over all particles, and set a PP attrib... well, particle expression automatically iterate over all particles.

ie, if you had the creation expression:

particleShape.colorR = rand(0,1);

(i'm not too sure about the attrib name, but the syntax is pretty much right...) then it will automatically be applied separately to each particle in the shape node.

to create a particle expression (slightly different from a normal expression), just right click on one of the attribs in the attrib editor for the particle shape node.

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