Cineversity

Hello,
I am trying to telescope an object that has more then 3 parts…  I want them to expand out equally as I move the top section.  While this is happening I have brackets mounted to the tops of each section which has a cable mounted to it that would need to expand in length as each section moves.  I have tried using mograph and set up everything using formula effector which worked great for moving the sections on a slider.  The next thing I tried was creating nulls for the mounting areas for the cables and tried using spline dynamics to control the length of the cables but it seems as though splines dynamics do not see position of mograph?  I may be mistaken but if this is not the right approach let me know!  I am in the process of trying to set it up in xpresso instead but having issues with telescoping with more than 3 parts but with a small test of 3 the spline dynamics to work so I think this is the better approach just need help with the set up of the xpresso.

Thanks!

Here is a picture of what I am trying to do.

Hi QA Graphics,

It sounds like an procedural animation, something that might have a lot of parts in it and all should work perhaps with nearly no keyframes.

In MoGraph you might set up the different states as separate model, place those under a cloner and us the Blend option. Clone amount = one. The following cloning is then done with Parent Cloner Object.

Spline Dynamic, not to generalize here anything, but the Cloner Object “normally” creates a copy object of the state it find the “child” object—and replicated the geometry and texture. It is a clone most of teh time, not a full and individually functioning new set up of a group or such. Example, an XPresso to each child of a Cloner Object will not result in individual working XPresso solutions for each clone. Again, some stuff works, some not, I can’t simplify it more. Yes, Dynamic (e.g., Rigit Body Tags work individually, again, ahrd to tell for an application with a four digit number of options and tools)

If you go with XPresso, you could “program” the progress with a RangeMapper Node. In this way a continuously increasing parameter can be set for on part of the object to progress normally, of starts later and perhaps one swing line a progressing wave even.

Another way would be to set up one part with of the telescope as a group and animate all you want, except for the position and scale of the whole group. Then create a motion clip out of it and and set up your animation in the motion clip editor.

IF there is something set in Keyframes, then the Step-Effector should work, but perhaps I miss something of your set up: Cables… perhaps a set up with Dynamic Springs, objects and Tracer?

This is all “brain-stroming” I have too little data (a simplified scene-file would help) to say anything with certainty. I would check the Blend idea first :o)

Let me know what appeals the most to you, and then let’s go from there.

All the best

Sassi

P.S.: :o)

I have two examples attached. Today I had a little bit of time to set them up. I hope you find something useful in them. I tried to have them as simple to animate as possible. Just a few keyframes each time.

The “..._01.c4d” file is more to clear the basics. All in all, I think I never have shared a set up like this here in the past eight years, so thanks for the question.

In the file with the “..._11.c4d” in it, you will find several states of a former animation. I copied the original animation and while progressing step wise (to the next key) I deleted all keyframes in that specific copy. Moved ahead, and deleted any keyframe from the next. etc. In that way I had key-poses, which can be changed individually to a certain degree. The “Blend” option in the Cloner and the “Modify Clones” in the Plain effector allowed then for a nice adjustment of the progress. Cables included!