Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Geo Connector Rivet

Hello, I had written this post years ago. This a rewritten version. I have a friend who taught me how to pin a transform on a vertex using a particle emitter. I haven't heard about this method, it could be because it is quite old. However, I going to explain in simplified way using just the geoConnector

As you know there are several ways to make a rivet (4x4 matrix, uvPin, follice, etc.) This method works quite well for pinning a vertex. The only downside is the performance, that's something to bear in mind. These are the steps to follow:
  • Create a set for a single or a group of vertices, if it's a group the rivet position will be averaged between them.
  • We create a locator and a geoConnector node.
  • Now, we need to create a vectorArray attribute to the geoConnector to hold a connection. We can called whatever we want.
mc.addAttr(geoCon,ln='ComponentPositionStatic',dt='vectorArray')
  • We need to find out the groupID, which was created when we create the set. You can localized in the node editor. Remember to turn on the visualization of the auxiliary nodes.
  • We need to make these connections.
  • The rivet setup is complete.
  • However, we have in the outliner a set without any function. Moreover, this depend on the number of rivets that we have in scene. Well, here is the solution for that. Just disconnect and delete in that order.
  • If we made everything as it was explained, the rivet will keep working.
Things to take into account:
  • We need to do this after applying all the deformation to our mesh. If we create a deformer after the rivet was created, it won't work when you reopen the scene.
  • This method is not parallel friendly, because of the geoConnector. Use it wisely.
That's all for now. Thank you

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