CGTalk - orienting instances along particle vector?

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dr_bob

01-31-2003, 04:15 PM

Hi

I've creating a flapping wing cycle for an insect, and have instanced this cycle to the particles of an omni emitter. However, I'm having a couple of problems:-

1) I want the insects to orient along the vector for the particles as they are emitted, to give the impression that the insects are flying out from the centre. At the moment all the insects are all oriented with reference to the source geometry;

2) I want the wing cycles for each particle to overlap, to make it look more random, but at the moment all the wings are beating in unison.

I've been through the manual but without success. Any suggestion you have will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

noktUp

01-31-2003, 10:06 PM

Wow thats a hard one, this will really call on some programming experience if you got it.

I think the fact that you are instancing the particle shapes might cause you some greif, because the instanced particles are allways going to get values for orientation(rotation), scale, and other attribs from the original geometry. so what you do to the original bug will happen to all the instanced ones also. And the instanced bug are explicitly going to mimic their respective original. but i'm sure with enought scriptin viggor you'll find the right path. look in the direction of per particle attributes, such as velocity ( vector and speed) or velocity0(initial velosity). i think if you use those attribs to drive an other expression/script which derives the orientation of the particles from velocity you might be able to solve the orientation thingy anyway.
as for the flap problem: Depending on whether the insects are instances at creation time or partical creation time you'll be able to controll at what offset the animation is played at.

I wish i could help more but at least i could point you in "A" direction anyway.

sorry eh?

(noktUp(teenSlut))

dr_bob

02-02-2003, 11:12 AM

Thanks for the info - I'll give your suggestions a go :-)

Selim

02-02-2003, 02:32 PM

I had similar problem - no solution yet :(

Ther's nice plugin: 'Behavioural Animation Engine for Maya Particles' :

http://www.kolve.com/mp_brainbugz/brainbugz.htm

Would be usefull ;)

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