Storing position/rotation

[Karnageddon]

Anyone at all...?

[PEN]

I would have to see what you are doing but I can tell you it isn't the right way. What you need to do is use the slider as a rate of rotation so that it is keyed to the rate of change in the frames. Each frame the amount of rotation needs to be added to the saw. So what you have is something like this.

theSawRotation+=(frame-lastFrame)*slider

[Karnageddon]

What I've tracked it down to is the expression I'm using that's wrong as well. Basically I'm using the expression as a motor (like the one in reactor that continuously rotates) that drives the blade to rotate in real time.
So customslider1 is doing precisely what you mentioned and controls the rotation of the blade a full 360 Degrees as it reaches 100%. Now the expression controller is applied to customslider1 and the expression looks to see if customslider2(power on/off type switch, 0-50%=off and 50-100%=on) has its value above 50% and if it does, it will perform the mod expression, which causes the blade to rotate to 6.25 (or 625% of customslider1, which results in a full rotation) and then the mod value resets it back to 0% and does it all over again, resulting in a looping sequence. This loop still runs even without any keyframing at all.

The problem is that I used NT to automate the rotation so it follows the world NT scale and tends to jump from one location to another rather than counting from when it's activated. For example, if i activate it at frame 0, it does a smooth rotation till i stop it but if i activate it at frame 10, it suddenly jumps 45 degrees(because NT started at frame 0) and continues running smoothly after that.

I have attached a simplified file for the blade if it makes it easier to understand. Thanks again for the help.

[PEN]

So this is where you need to do my suggestion and have it rotate a given angle each frame, this would be additive and not absolute so it would keep rotating. Problem with this method is when it comes to rendering you either have to render it on one machine or bake the animation on it. I usually go with the baking option and build that into the script. We used the same method for the Heli on Roary the Racing Car (http://www.paulneale.com/technical/roaryTheRacingCar/roaryTheRacingCar.html).

[Karnageddon]

Thanks Paul, I tried to the best of my knowledge to understand but unfortunately, I really don't know how and where to use what you have suggested.

I found a temporary fix to the issue with vray by dragging down motion blur to .1 frames which works really well; but hiding the problem isn't helping me in any way.
I would love to understand how to do this properly so I can use it elsewhere.

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

loocas created a rig to do additive rotation in this thread here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=98&t=497415). It may help with what you are trying to do.

-Eric

[Karnageddon]

Thanks a lot Eric, I am looking at his script piece by piece trying to understand what he's done. Although the setup he's used is really nice, I will try to implement his method in my interface, so I can at least learn something from it.

[Karnageddon]

So I decided to go a different path while trying not to over think this problem and discovered a much easier solution.
This method involves integration into a UI Dialog that I'm already using on my secondary monitor, to make view port navigation a less frustrating experience.
This method also uses interval key framing which prevents the problem Paul mentioned earlier about rendering over a farm; which in my case is true because I plan to own some nodes by the time I'm done this project, so might as well prepare for it now.

Thanks again for the help guys and hopefully someone in the same situation as myself will find this useful.
macroScript TEST
macroScript TEST
category:"My Tools"

(
rollout window1 "TEST1" width:200 height:100

(
timer tmrspeed "" interval:10 active:false
checkbutton chkpower "Power" pos:[20,5] width:50 height:44
spinner spnspeed "Speed" pos:[100, 25] width:70 height:70 range:[0,40,(tmrspeed.interval)]

--Control Blade Rotation Speed
on spnspeed changed state do
tmrspeed.interval=spnspeed.value

--Enable Timer Upon Button Press
on chkpower changed state do
if state==true then
tmrspeed.active=true
else
tmrspeed.active=false

--Rotate Blade on Timer Interval
on tmrspeed tick do
rotate $Blade (angleaxis 10 [0,0,1])
)
createDialog window1 width:200 height:100

)

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