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Using mograph, how to make one object trace another object at vertices? (R12)
In other words, I’d like to make one object move from vertex to vertex of an object, tracing its shape in the viewer’s memory.
I thought I could use mograph and a cloner object to first create the clones, which worked … but if I use the random effector to control the visibility of the clones and make only one clone visible (but changing which clone is visible), I can’t set it so that only one clone is visible in each frame. Instead, the number of visible clones varies from frame to frame. I’d also like to trace the entire object by the end of the animation.
(In the case of a cube traced by spheres, we would only see one sphere in frame, but it would move from vertex to vertex of the (invisible) cube over six frames.)
Is there a setting that will show only one clone per frame?
An alternate approach would be to make the small object travel along a path, where the path traces the shape of the larger object. I can see doing this with a spline, but not from vertex to vertex of an object. Would this be a better approach, and if so, how could I make the small object travel from vertex to vertex of another object? (randomly would be preferred)
Thanks,
Steve -
3 Replies
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if you use a Matrix object rather than a cloner (in Object Mode) you can set it to generate Thinking Particles and those you can reference in a mograph Tracer (or the free UberTracer) to get a path.
A Matrix/Xpresso combo maybe could be used to get a single object to randomly jump about the TP points generated. A lot depends on how complex your object to trace is, what shape are you really using? Really a cube or something else?
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Thanks for getting back to me, Brian. At one point it was a cube, then it became a cube with multiple segments, because six vertices wasn’t enough to suggest the shape in the viewer’s memory. Too bad, because I probably could have animated the bouncing whatever around the vertices manually.
Unfortunately, I only have Broadcast, so TP is out. Sorry i didn’t mention that. So without TP, I’m stuck, eh?
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using xpresso you could easily get an object to jump from vertex to vertex on an object just the speed of the jumps would be a problem how fast do you want it to jump, one jump per frame is very easy if you want the jumps to be slower that would take some work (or something I’m not thinking of yet).
Is the shape tracing you are looking for entirely observational or are you going to actually trace the path of the jumps?
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