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Author Topic: Animating objects with constant speed  (Read 4230 times)

LS1281

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Animating objects with constant speed
« on: August 21, 2017, 04:33:37 PM »
I have a unique problem (I think)

I would like to animate an object along a spline at a set velocity (10cm/30 frames for example) This will need to be applied to splines of different length. So If I have 3 splines, 10cm, 30cm, and 90 cm, they would take 30, 90, and 270 frames to complete the animation. Unfortunately I dont have 3 splines, but 400+ splines. Each with different lengths. So using a path constraint and moving the keys manually is out of the questions. Also, the length of the splines can vary from 1945.345cm to 4839.234cm

Does anyone know how to do this and be able to apply it en masse to a large set of objects and splines without too much manual labor? I've been thinking about maybe even using PFlow to create some sort of dynamic system.

To give a little more info. I need to create pulses of "light" along lots of wires in a building, but all the wires have different lengths.

Any help would be kindly appreciated.

Michal Karmazín

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Re: Animating objects with constant speed
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2017, 04:48:44 PM »
Hi,

A possible style set-up would be to use the Limits > Padding > Start value (which can be easily animated) to drive the position of used Segment. You can use the Sequence Operator with an empty Segment as the second input as a "break" to place just one Segment, when linked to the Default input or link it directly to the Start input. Attaching screen-shots. Hope that helps.

Best regards,

LS1281

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Re: Animating objects with constant speed
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2017, 05:07:55 PM »
Thank you for the quick response.

I don't think I quite understand how this is working (even though it is quite simple). What part of the numeric padding start node would I need to animate? Also how will this save me time when having to wire this to 400+ splines. I will still need to create 400 networks like this, correct?

Edit: I'm using 2.7.0 if this helps.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2017, 05:10:04 PM by LS1281 »

Michal Karmazín

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Re: Animating objects with constant speed
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2017, 10:30:50 AM »
Hi,

Attaching a sample scene, where the position is driven by an expression - easily adjustable by the Speed/sec parameter. It's made in the RC 3.0.8 - we always recommend to use the latest version released. Hope you'll find it useful.

Best regards,