How can I align a line between 2 animated pointsH?

[Morne]

Hi all

I have 2 pointHelpers moving in space. How can I align the ends of a line to constantly be aligned with the 2 points? As in left side of my line "touches" pointHelper1 and right side of my line "touches" pointHelper2?

[Morbid Angel]

if I understand correctly you can simply put a skin modifier on the line and weight point 1 to helper 1 and point 2 to helper 2.

[percydaman]

Would a linked xform work? *runs off to try it.

[percydaman]

yup it worked. I did a spline select on the spline, and selected one of the vertices, and then slapped on a linked xform on top of the stack and chose one of the point helpers. Then did the same thing with the other one. Move the point helpers and each point of the line follows the helper.

I'd bet the skin modifier would work too though.

[Morne]

I should probably have mentioned that the points was created from a camera solve motion capture in Autodesk MatchMover. I export the solve to max as a maxscript (ms) and then run the script in max. I have 7 points tracked but only care about 2. All the points are grouped and has keyframes. As soon as I ungroup the points, the the animation of the points changes for some reason. They are not linked to each other and has no constraint. Trying to link the ends of my line to it results in more or less same result, that being only the one end of the line "follows" the point, whereas the other stays put. Other techniques results in both ends trying to follow the points, but somehow it does its own thing and doesn't follow the points.

I'm trying to align my weapon to the line, however I'm struggling to align my line to the points so the weapon can follow the line. MatchMover allows you to create a relation between points and represents it with a line. This line however doesn't get exported so I'm trying to recreate it in max.

Any thoughts?

[instinct]

can't you just open the group instead of ungrouping and use a linked xform ?

Regards,
Thorsten

[Morne]

can't you just open the group instead of ungrouping and use a linked xform ?

Regards,
Thorsten

I've done it that way also, however either way gives both results. As soon as I linked xfrom the 2nd side, the 1st side looses the link. If I do it in reverse, the other side looses the link. Whichever linked xform is on top of the stack, is the one that gets used. the other one gets ignored.

Explanation: So I have a line with 2 vertices and a linked xform for each vertice. So in my stack it says from the top: linked xfrom, linked xform, line.

Any ideas?

[instinct]

you need to add a "SplineSelect" modifier between them to select the second point. And have the first point selected in the subobject of the line directly. Otherwise both are first linked to the one helper and further up the stack to the other.

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

[percydaman]

Strange. I had no problem. Let me run down what I did and see if this is what your trying to do:

I created 2 point helpers. Animated each.
Created line and snapped each end to each point helper.
Opened group of point helpers.
Added a spline select to line: select one vertex. Add linked xform and chose selected vertex.
Added second spline select and selected other vertex. Second linked xform added and chose second vertex.

Now regardless of whether the group is open or closed each vertex follows its proper helper. Is this what your trying to do?

[Morne]

you need to add a "SplineSelect" modifier between them to select the second point. And have the first point selected in the subobject of the line directly. Otherwise both are first linked to the one helper and further up the stack to the other.

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

You're a legend! Thanks that worked perfectly

@Percy: sorry seems I missed in your 1st post you said you used a "spline select". You're also a legend

[percydaman]

heh glad it worked.

[Morne]

jip, there was another problem which somebody luckily pointed out over at "the Area". The problem was that once you have the line aligned, you cannot align your weapon to it since the pivot stays in the same location since the animation is at vertex level and not object level. To sort this problem just take a measure helper and align and link that instead of the line to the tracking points. Then align the weapon to the measure helper. I did that and it worked great.

Now if only I can figure out why my weapon seems to "slide" over the actors hand in the 1 camera while the points are excatly tracked and follows the video. In the second camera the weapon is fine, but that cam was only to track the points and the main cam is needed. Very weird stuff. Will report back when I found the problem.

[instinct]

Didnt even think about your actual problem in my first post. Only about the solution to the question heh. Sorry. Anyways what i would have dont in the first place would be assigning a look-at constraint to one of the Dummy's orientation controller. Then pick the second one as target and simply link the weapon to that one.

As to the offset that aint really solvable without any images or clips i am afraid.

Regards,
Thorsten