Reactor Controller stability?

[tonygib]

Currently I have a number of reactor controllers on my character rig handling both position and rotation reactions, often both on the same object reacting to different changing values.

So far the only little strange thing I have come across, was a funny vertex pop or movement on one side of the mesh, it didn't happen on the other side even though both sides are rigged the same. My solution was to clear the falloff curve check mark on one of the reactor contollers. It still works and I can't tell any differance in the reaction movement, other then no more vertex poping.

So apart from that the reactor controller seams stable enough for prodution and lets face it, there isn't many other options anyway :)

[JennDowns]

Thanks for the reply Tony!

[Gumtoo]

i and the rest of the team used it on a couple of complex rigs in a teaser 3 month ago and it worked great & didn't cause any pb. it seems to be far more reliable now than at the time of max 3 .

[JennDowns]

It looks like I will be using the reactor controller after all thanks to your replies, tonygib and gumtoo. You've put my mind at easy about it.

[tonygib]

JennDowns, np, not that I am saying it is totally trouble free (is anything in max :surprised ) but as far as anything generally goes, its about as stable as max gets :)

Talking about version 5.1 of course.

[Manboy]

You're probably already aware of this, but make sure there's a big time range in your time bar when you use the reactor controller; something like -1000 to 10000 frames will do. If you use a small range of time, then need to animate outside that range, you'll find the controller can stop working. Similar deal with parameter wiring.

[tonygib]

Hay manboy, I know about that in relation to wiring, but I didn't think it was the same case with the reactor controller. And since I have set-up a fair bit so far I hope it doesn't apply to the reactor controller, will have to test that out.

[JennDowns]

Yeah I usually do that anyway but since it's been brought up. Is there way to change the frame count for the reactor controller on the fly? Maybe through the trackview or accessed through a script?

[thomaspecht]

while we are at it - one question that bugs me currently: do you guys use reactor in conjunction with character studio's biped to control biped behaviour? would that work at all?

[tonygib]

well, I thought I was stuffed. I think I am still right, in that reactor its doesn't have the problem. But of course all my reactor setups are working off a CA, which when I wired them I didn't extent the frame range. As it turns out, you can just extent the time range in the track view, or if you have many to do, their is a script "setwireranges" that can do it.

I don't use biped, but see no reason why the reactor controller wouldn't work.

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