RC4 Nested transform operators bug?!

[Lars Egerrup / LKE Design]

Hi there,
I am working on my Office layout setup, and has run into a problem.
In order to have some reasonable variation in my layout, I have made a macro that handles the placement of each object related to a desktop seat - can be a chair, a monitor, a lamp and so on. The macro contains some  transforms with random variation.

Let's take a chair - it should stand in various distances from the table (Y transform), and can have some variation sideways (X transform). At the same time it should have some rotational variation (Z rotation).

Following the new directions for nesting transforms in RC4 (DEMO: RailClone 4 - More Intuitive Transform Operator), the center rotation should be done first, and after this the various movements along the X and Y axis. I have put random variance (min/max) in this way, that I set the max with a numeric input and then invert it to get the min.

Now it just doesn't work. Despite I have nested the transforms in  rotation -> movement   - once the chair has some rotation, - the movement along the axis are strange - and vise versa.

I want the chair to move along the X and Y axis (in my book along (x) and perpendicular (y) to the path   - and at the same time rotate around itself at the given position.

I have made a simplified testbench, that show the problem. Below you see the RC setup in the scene as well in the RC editor. Since it would take loads of screen dumps to show the problem, I have also attached the max file, so you can try to shift values - and thereby see the result.

Thanks

[Dragan]

Please can you downgrade the file to max2018.
But maybe this can help:
For RC4 it is better to use fixed-size parameters+Random numeric usually set to Segment mode because Random Transforms are cumulative and can cause some unexpected behaviour unless you know what are you doing

[Lars Egerrup / LKE Design]

I think I have found the reason and solution. (but please confirm it for me )
So I had set the alignment for all the axis to pivot in both transforms. Apparently this have the effect that the model (the chair) looks at it's local UCS or axis, if you will. This is good for the rotation transform, but if you have it set on the X and Y translation transform, the chairs will move along their local axis which is now is rotated.

The solution is to set the alignments for the translation to automatic, then the translation goes along the setups local axis.

[Rokas]

Lars I want to add a note that You can choose which transform behavior You want by either going fixed (chained RC4), or random (accumulated RC3).

[Dragan]

Hi Lars,
here is the macro that can be used for Fixed Transformation but you can add additional values to be added to the fixed value or you can use those values as a percentage of the original value.
Best Regards
Dragan

[Lars Egerrup / LKE Design]

Thanks guys, for help and inspiration
What a great forum this is