Animating curves/surfaces by moving control point

[Valerio Caravani]

Hi guys! i'm new here, i'm a student who has just begun to start using Maya and Python programming in Maya, 

I would like to have some information about how to make curves or surfeces animation by moving control points.

Thanks,

Valerio

[Michael Boon]

This may not be the right place to ask, depending on what exactly you mean by that. You definitely need to be more specific about what you're trying to achieve.

And start with the docs, and the various tutorials and help sites around the web, where the information you want is probably already written down or recorded. If you've tried it and you get stuck, then come to a forum with specific questions and someone will probably help you quickly.

[Valerio Caravani]

Thanks Micheal for answer me so quickly, I took a few days to clarify my ideas and now i'll be more specific. I need to achieve a simulation by Maya, I have to simulate a structure subject to deformation, I have python code for deformation, I dont 'know yet how perform that with Maya. I think that i need to create a DG node that describe the structure (with dimensions structure as input (width,height,ecc) and mesh as output) and a deformer node that take structure mesh as input, perform the deformation in deform() method and then retrieve deformed mesh as output. Can i do it? 

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[Andres Weber]

 You can definitely do it however I think an answer that involved is a little intense without directed really specific implementation questions.  Here's a helpful tutorial (it costs only $15) detailing the process of how to write a custom deformer for Maya by Chad Vernon (I'm sure there are newer ones around but this is the last one I watched.)

https://www.cgcircuit.com/course/creating-a-custom-jiggle-deformer

Once you research how to write a custom deformer in Maya and have a bit of code laid out and have specific questions feel free to come on back and we'd be more than happy to help!

[Michael Boon]

It would probably be useful to look at how other people have solved a similar problem, too. Are there any examples of people creating similar deformations in Maya? Do they have custom deformers for it? There's a good chance they used some combination of existing Maya nodes, at least for part of the solution.

From my interpretation of what you've described, I think it might be worth putting some sort of lattice deformer on your structure, then scripting the motion of the control points on the lattice. You could simply step through time and key each point on each frame. Once you have that working, you could look into more elegant ways to do it.