Translate Stretchy + Global Scale

#1

This is a ridiculously simple question… something I’m missing here. I’ve always used scale to control stretchy but there’s just too much to compensate for in the build and for weighting. Translate is more work but is a better alternative, besides I’ll just script it…

Using Maya. What do I do differently to setup global scale with a translate stretchy method?

I’m dividing the distance by absolute distance, then multiplying the result by the length of the shoulder->elbow and elbow->wrist (in their respective nodes); the output of that (into coloriftrueR) as well as the distance node goes into a condition (first term) with absolute in second term, and current length in coloriffalseR, etc…

With scale method I just multiply the absolute length by the scale Y of the global control, so I’m missing something here, maybe just one node… I did that and put the output to replace the absolute length in the first MD that’s dividing the distance by absolute length…

Any help appreciated. I basically just figured out how to do this myself as well as elbow locking in the setup but can’t work out what I’m doing wrong with the simple thing :banghead:

#2

Good thing I kept my old school examples, we did exactly this there. If I’ve understood your problem correctly.

In that example we divide the distance from the shoulder and wrist (using the distance tool and point constraining the locators to the shoulder and wrist) with the scale of the global controller before passing it through the rest of the setup. Which from what I read should be similar to what I have here.

Hope that gives you a hint on what to do.

#3

Hi there,

Thank you for your response.

I solved it, though, it was rather silly- for scale based you only connect it to the MD, for translate you do both cond and MD - that’s why it wasn’t working for me. :slight_smile:

#4

Hi,
I got this from abAutoRig.mel by Supercrumbly.
No condition node used, a little less confusing for me.
This is for ik handles(elbow or knee).

From top to bottom.

distance (comming from the distanceBetween node, from shoulder to wrist)
[[divided]]]
globalCtrl.masterScale(scale x y and z of the globalCtrl itself conencted to a custom attribute called ‘masterScale’’ on itself.)

[[divided]]
length along bones(from shoulder to elbow and from elbow to wrist)
*the result should be a little less than 1, no worry.

[[multiply]]
multiply by 0 or 1 this attribute coming from the auto stretch attribute, to switch the stretchy behavior on or off.

[[clamp]]
whatever value it is, clamp it to be NOT lesser than 1, and in the maxR, connect it to the
‘maxStretch’ attribute coming from the control to limit how far you want the ik to stretch -this can always be changed by animator.

[[multiply]]
multiply by the original translate(X ,Y or whatever) value. Then connect the result to your joint.

just an alternative.

#5

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