Time node used for offset prs

[bobrobertuma]

I’m trying to expose the main time node in Maya 2016.5.  I’ve not messed much with Maya in a while and since it revamped the graph editor and hyperhsade to the node editor format.  I’m forgetting what to turn on to find the time node in upstream and downstream.   Secondly I’m trying to rig a train type motion where I have a box on a motion path and I wish to create a second time node to hook into the following train cars.  I’ve used Duncan Brinsmeads awesome mothergooser.mel script but it’s truly flocking and when I stop a transform object on a motion path using that script, the trailing train cars mash into it and occupy the same space.  Which is close but I need them to follow the master transforms on a path and remain a set distance by time or by curve distance.

 

Cheers,

 

Jason

[Steve Davy]

You'd be able to do this with MASH very easily.

---

From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of bobrobertuma <bobrob...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 3, 2017 4:23 PM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [maya_he3d] Time node used for offset prs

 

I’m trying to expose the main time node in Maya 2016.5.  I’ve not messed much with Maya in a while and since it revamped the graph editor and hyperhsade to the node editor format.  I’m forgetting what to turn on to find the time node in upstream and downstream.   Secondly I’m trying to rig a train type motion where I have a box on a motion path and I wish to create a second time node to hook into the following train cars.  I’ve used Duncan Brinsmeads awesome mothergooser.mel script but it’s truly flocking and when I stop a transform object on a motion path using that script, the trailing train cars mash into it and occupy the same space.  Which is close but I need them to follow the master transforms on a path and remain a set distance by time or by curve distance.

 

Cheers,

 

Jason

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "maya_he3d" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[bobrobertuma]

Your right Steve.  I thought about that and may try to use Mash (which is friggen awesome) for that but I wanted to rig up this system as I’ll need to add more layers of rigging complexity on it like each train or car with a bone and aim constraint over the trucks so that the trucks follow a rail road track and rock back and forth and the body is attached at front and rear via a bone to the trucks.  But yes, Mash sometimes is just so slick for this stuff.  Half of my question is I feel like Maya has become a bit foreign and I’m trying to begrudgingly adopt the new interfaces and try to work in it again like I used to.

 

Thanks!

[Stephen]

To get the time node you want to select time1 

You can do this with the select by name died in the status bar  by typing in time1 

  Or 

With mel in the command line with 

 select -r time1; 

 As for multiple objects on a motion path you can easily control something like this by connecting the uValue of the first objects motionPath  to an addDoubleLinear and connecting that to the next objects motionPath uValue 

  ( put the offset in value(along the path ) into the addDoubleLinear ) 

And continue on for each consecutive object 

 The uValue controls the speed and timing of an object on a path base on 0-1    (Using default motion path creation )

Hth

-=s 

[Andres Weber]

Since I've also run through/coded the harder solution you mentioned and realized there's a simpler alternative if a train mechanic is what you're looking for:

You can achieve the same result by spacing out some joints at the rear of every train car and then just hooking up the joints to an IK Spline that's driven by the curve you used for the motion path.  It generates a pretty reliable train rig in a pinch where you can also use the offset attribute of the ik spline solver to drive the train motion.  The only issue comes if you need some reliable up vectors and you have a complex path but not too bad to solve.  I've attached an example file (in maya 2017...sorry but I don't have 2015 installed and I haven't retrograded files in awhile...didn't use any 2017 nodes so hopefully it will translate okay.)

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "maya_he3d" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[bobrobertuma]

Thanks Stephen and Andres.

 

Yes Andres, that is what I’m using now for my current train rig.  Just wanted to see if I could modify Duncan Brinsmeads seup after applying it to simply to a time offset that controlled the various expressions motherGooser.mel sets up.  It’s a great little app but doesn’t quite do a train rig.

 

Best Regards.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "maya_he3d" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "maya_he3d" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[José Miguel Aragüés]

Is there a reason why you can't just use the "frameCache" node?. You just tell it to offset the animation in time and that's all.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "maya_he3d" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "maya_he3d" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maya_he3d+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[bobrobertuma]

Hi List,

 

If anyone is curious, thought I’d point out a subtle change in the MASH curve node.  I ended up doing the old fashioned splineIK method for trains but in my experimenting while using Maya 2016.5, I found that the Curve node in the mash network would not work to create a “train” system that was easy to control.   The main reason is that if you need to animate the train accelerating to a speed then stopping and perhaps backing up etc.  The only parameters that seemed useful was “Animation Speed.”   However this is not intuitive and hard to animate with.

 

Out of curiosity I tried this in Maya 2018 and in fact there is a simple additional parameter on the MASH curve node that I’m amazed isn’t in 2016 “Offset Curve.”   Turning animation speed to Zero and then animating the Offset Curve param is easy peasy.   Not sure if this param was added to 2017 or not.  I try to animated in 2016 as we are Mental Ray users on our farm.

 

Cheers.

 

From: maya...@googlegroups.com [mailto:maya...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Davy

Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2017 5:28 PM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com

[Ian Waters]

I think (struggling to remember that far back :) that in 2016.5 you can also do this very easily, just disconnect the ‘time’ connection, and animate that attribute by hand (setting keys), the result will be the same as animating the Offset Curve in 2018. In 2016 it might be under ‘extra attributes’ on the Curve node; I can’t remember when I promoted Time to the main UI.

Best,

Ian

__ Ian Waters Lead Developer Mainframe 82 Silk Street Manchester M4 6BJ 0161 205 4763 mainframe.co.uk @ianwaters

[bobrobertuma]

Hmm, interesting I see that now.  Thanks! J