CGTalk - Rdial Cloning in XSI?

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CAClark

05-28-2003, 11:43 AM

I'm in the process of learning XSI, and not doing too badly. Now i am coming from a LW background, so forgive the 'this is how lightwave does it' style of question..... but... in LW I can do a 'Radial Clone' which around a user specified co-ord and axis will clone an object a specified number of times, leaving you with them equispaced around said point.

To clarify, imagine a propeller blade. I have the centre spinner it is attached to centred at 0,0,0 si I then want 4 copies in total, so in LW I couls sepcify 4 copies radial around Z at 0,0,0. This would then leave me with 4 blades at 90 degree inetrvals.

How can I achieve this in XSI without manually duplicating and positioning them?

Thanks in advance

Craig Clark

EdHarriss

05-28-2003, 02:02 PM

Believe it or not, untill a week or two ago, the only way to do an array in XSI was to put your object on a path and do an Edit> Duplicate>Duplicate From animation.

Now there is a tool for it.
Grab this script:
http://www.mindthink.de/ohm/arrayxsi
It is very easy to use and will do just what you want.

CAClark

05-28-2003, 02:19 PM

Thanks Ed, truly a life saver.

Most appreciated.

Cheers

Craig

tachy0n

05-28-2003, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by EdHarriss
Believe it or not, untill a week or two ago, the only way to do an array in XSI was to put your object on a path and do an Edit> Duplicate>Duplicate From animation.

Now there is a tool for it.
Grab this script:
http://www.mindthink.de/ohm/arrayxsi
It is very easy to use and will do just what you want.

Well there is(was) a way to do radial arrays in
XSI, just not a very nice or convinient way.

Basically what you do is move your object away from the origin, and then move the pivot(center) back to the origin. Now do a clone/duplicate multiple, and enter the rotation values in the transform panel.

Of course now we have the script also.

CAClark

05-29-2003, 12:54 AM

that works pretty well actually, and in simple scenrios like prop blades is quicker than the script... and for dealing with things not centered at 0,0,0 its actually slightly easier to keep track of.

So thanks to both of you guys, damn this post has helped me a lot.

Cheers

Craig

marci2001

05-29-2003, 08:26 AM

XSI has a little feature connected to cloning:
If you clone something, make some translations, rotations, scalings. Press Ctrl+D again, and the new copy will be affected by your actions previously done, relatively to its own position.

So if after duplicating an object you don't change your selection, the new duplications will inherit the transformations done to their donors.

M

CAClark

05-30-2003, 12:16 AM

Presumably this relation ship remains until you carry out an operation on that duplicate? Could you freeze that duplicate to break its relationship with the original?

Cheers

Craig

ggg

05-30-2003, 01:49 AM

no need to freeze, there is no operator applied or associated with duplicates.
I think xform is just repeating recent transform history

duplicate are duplicatED (with or without options to inherit things)
clones are clonING
instatiates are instantiatING

and the xfrom options and other duplicate options can be turned off before applying the non-procedrual one time operator.

ps hopefully one day we'll have a copyOP in xsi (a procedural one) or a scop replicating one will be made soon

another option is to duplicate on a path, multi select them then use L(n,n) in the path percentage to distribute them

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