Grouping + Motion Path = Double Transformations

[mark_wilkins]

If you're in a highly structured production pipeline I highly recommend running this past your TDs or pipeline people before relying on it, but if you go through each of the transform nodes for the objects that make up the tank tread that you need to group and uncheck "inherits transform" under Transform Attributes in the Attribute Editor, you'll find that it will do what you want.

The gotcha is that if any pipeline scripts or software down the line from you do not honor that "inherits transform" flag then you're back where you started. (This is not a problem in an all-Maya pipeline, but if, for example, you were exporting the entire hierarchy to a game engine that did not offer a similar feature, an exporter might error out or just ignore the flag and give you double transforms after export.)

-- Mark

[bluedragon128]

Highend 3d has a script for tank treads. Also if I believe right somewhere here is a thread about tank treads, it should contain some tutorials. Hope that helps.

[Jakobud]

thanks mark, that sounds like that will work.

Bluedragon....did you even read my post? I was asking about transform inheritence not how to make tank treads.

[de_tomato]

Originally posted by Jakobud
Bluedragon....did you even read my post? I was asking about transform inheritence not how to make tank treads.

Geezzz.. Bluedragon was trying to help! do you need to be that harsh?

... little kid!

[mark_wilkins]

Maybe he was a little harsh, but it sounded like he had a working tank tread arrangement already -- and realize that in a typical production environment this probably means that he'd had several levels of management and supervisor approval of the look, the rig, the behavior, and so on. What he was asking about was the last, tiny little step necessary to put this rig under a parent node.

Using a single parent node to group all the pieces that make up something complicated has lots of advantages in an environment where you have to automatically export stuff. One reason for this is that you can write your export scripts to walk through the hierarchy under the parent node rather than requiring that the user select every piece individually. Also, it makes it possible to automatically find all the items in the hierarchy that relate to a particular object, regardless of whether they follow a naming convention (though for many reasons a naming convention is a nice thing to have as well.)

I guess the lesson worth taking away from all this is that the production process at a post house, movie studio, or game studio can be very different than what one uses for one's own projects or one's student work. Students who think they know it all should probably remember this when looking for a job, and pros who ask for help on these forums should probably keep it in mind when they get well-meaning help that is different in scope than what they think they need.

-- Mark

[bluedragon128]

No, I did read the post. It just sounded like that you were getting a double transform node that could have totally goofed up your hard work. I had a friend a while back trying to make tank treads working the same way as you have setup, just he was having problems with the rotation. I just said that script because any kind of information is always good and it might you made you see it done in another way than you have. Sorry if I had offended you in anyway.

[mark_wilkins]

BTW, I didn't mean to take a swipe at you guys with my last comment, just trying to make some sense of the disconnect in communication. :D

-- Mark

[bluedragon128]

Yeah, I realize that, I know we are here with people from all around the world, each person has their own ways of communicating. And each person has their own way of working.:)

[Jakobud]

Oh man i'm so sorry. I didnt mean to come off harshly or anything. Sorry about that :( Its so difficult to express any sort of emotions in these forums sometimes (except with these dumb little smiley faces :)

[bluedragon128]

Yeah I know what you mean, it gets even harder when people use slang too. Especially when certain words carry more meaning than others. Sometimes it just gets hard trying to write something without it being harsh when it wasn't meant to be.:)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.