Itoo Software Forum

RailClone => RailClone Pro (*) => Topic started by: JTP Vis on September 04, 2014, 05:57:19 PM

Title: Arrow flying along a spline
Post by: JTP Vis on September 04, 2014, 05:57:19 PM

I want to animate an arrow curving and flying along a path, and I wondered if it was possible with railclone? I have the arrow and I have the path, I'm just not sure where to start with the animation part of it.

Cheers,

Bill

Title: Re: Arrow flying along a spline
Post by: Paul Roberts on September 04, 2014, 06:24:20 PM

Hi Bill,

Shouldn't be a problem with RailClone and there are probably a few ways to achieve this. Here's how I solved it.

• Create a new Railclone object and add an L1S generator. Wire the path to the spline input
• Attach a Conditional operator to the Default input. From the properties, set Segment > X Counter to Equals 1. This will ensure that only one segment appears.
• Attach the arrow to the Conditional node's input
• From the Generator's properties, set Rules > Corner > Bevel Type to None. This will prevent the arrow from being sliced in unwanted ways as it passes of the spline's vertices.
• That's it! Now close the style editor go to the Base Objects rollout, turn Off Full Length and keyframe the Start value to create the animation.

(http://i.imgur.com/eDYfcSq.gif)

I hope that helps, let me know if you have further questions.

Many thanks,

Paul

Title: Re: Arrow flying along a spline
Post by: cc8boy on September 05, 2014, 10:15:52 AM

By the way, I wonder if all the values in Style editor are animatable ?
Are all the values in Railclone Pro rollout in modifier tab animatable ?

Title: Re: Arrow flying along a spline
Post by: Paul Roberts on September 05, 2014, 10:30:48 AM

Hi,

If a value can be exported from the style editor, it should be animatable. To do this, Right click on a node and export the property, attach a numeric node to the new input and then you can animate the value in the Base Objects rollout of the modifier. 

Value in the Base Objects and Parameters rollouts are animatable, but values in the Style rollout (like global scale and curve steps) currently are not.

Hope that helps.

Many thanks,

Paul

Title: Re: Arrow flying along a spline
Post by: JTP Vis on September 05, 2014, 10:49:43 AM

I thought I should say that this worked beautifully!

Cheers,

Bill

Title: Re: Arrow flying along a spline
Post by: Paul Roberts on September 05, 2014, 10:51:17 AM

Hi Bill,

That's great news, glad we could help out.

Cheers,

Paul