[Nathan Clark]

Okay, so after a good sleep I hope I’m smarter today and wont waste another day on this. Sorry to double post, but I think I might be able to make things clearer now!

Adam’s work made me realise that (if I simplified things a little) all I need is the Up Vector. Attached is a scene file that has a null constrained to a sphere via the Up-Vector Constraint. The null behaves exactly how I need it to…

Now I just need a way to do this in Xpresso, calculating the Up-Vector from the null to the Sphere (rather than using a constraint). I want to say:

“Oh hey Xpresso, here is my source object and here is my target object. Can you please work out the Up Vector for me?”

Does this make things clearer? Easier to solve? please? 🙂

8253_3dto2dretargeting01upvector.c4d.zip

[Nathan Clark]

Hey Adam,

Thanks for having a crack at this for me 🙂

I see where you are heading with this- and if my end goal was simpler, I think using some clever constraints could definitely work. The thing is, I will be using this component (with many different values) on many different objects within my workflow. So I need something super lean and reusable… Sadly I think I will need to find a mathy solution (which is a big shame, because math = fail for me.)

I’ve been looking into the math all day and am just overwhelmed by everything I don’t know… even the basic trig is confusing me (dammit, being bad at things sucks)…But I have this feeling what I’m trying to do is very basic… But I just keep getting lost in equations and terminology I don’t understand.

[Nathan Clark]

Yep thanks, I just needed to adjust how I initialize my rig’s pose. Its working fantastically, thanks a lot Dan!

[Nathan Clark]

Hi Dan,

Indeed it is close 🙂 thanks for having a look at this! There is a limitation that I would love to circumvent if at all possible?

Currently, by design, it’s problematic to reposition the initial location of the leader null. The puppet pin tries to stay where it is, with the tension then pulling it to the new location of the null (I assume this is because the expression is referencing the initial position of the pin, rather than the null?).

This is explained better the short screencapture below. Is this something that can be changed easily enough? So the initial position of the pin is locked to the null?

Puppet Physics – Troubleshooting 01

[Nathan Clark]

Hi David,

Im looking into breathing some fresh air into my Mac Pro ’08 (before retiring it in a year or so).
I would love to run 2 x 3GB GTX 580’s.

Originally I had planned on capitalizing on the new driver and running the cards natively, But this thread and you knowledge have convinced me that I would be much better off with the cards you offer.

Can you please tell me how to get in contact with you so I can make this Cuda dream come true?

Thanks!

[Nathan Clark]

Ran into this problem today. (AE CS4 Mac)
Only way I could make it work was to freeze frame within the precomp.
It was easy for me, but depending on the complexity of your comps- I imagine this could become a nightmare.

On Point Cloud Nine

[Nathan Clark]

Bump this, i’ve been going crazy trying to change this !

On Point Cloud Nine

[Nathan Clark]

Randy:
I will indeed be using multiple passes and composite them in nuke.

Adam:
The shadowcatcher plugin seems to be getting me where i need to be, but it add a HUGE overhead to render times- at this stage I can live with that but I need some more advice.
Assuming my scene is as simple as a box on a plane:
I need the box and its GI shadows rendered with an alpha channel,
So the plane becomes invisible except for the effects of the GI
Could you advise as to the best method for doing this?, I have now installed the shadowcatcher plugin and tried to work it out, but cannot seem to get the result.
Thanks a lot
Nathan

On Point Cloud Nine

[Nathan Clark]

Look at Nukes wonderful node called “points to 3D”
It is exaclty what your trying to do, but in Nuke.
Maybe someone could port the math to a plug-in for AE.

On Point Cloud Nine

[Nathan Clark]

Hey all,

I was just getting my syntax muddled while searching the forums.
I have since found the answer-

using the index + 1

Thanks!

On Point Cloud Nine