Hello,
I would like to be able to create a chain of  spheres in Moray that could be
moved in a snake-like fashion. In the rough example below, that would mean 1
would move to the spot occupied by 2, and 2 would move to the spot occupied
by 3, and 3 would move to the spot occupied by 4, and so on. I  know I could
do it by hand, one sphere at a time, but I will have probably a couple
hundred of them, and that's far too tedious for me!

1                                         14    15
2                                   13                16
29   30
 3                               12                       17
28               31
  4                            11                           18
27
     5                       10                              19
26
         6               9                                     20
25
              7     8                                             21
24
                                                                         22
23

Any suggestions as to how this can be done?
Thanks,
Steve Shelby

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Hi sshelby, you recently wrote in moray.win:

> I would like to be able to create a chain of  spheres in Moray that could be
> moved in a snake-like fashion. 
I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean when you say that they
should then be moved in a snake-like fashion? Do you want to animate
them?

While Moray cannot directly place spheres like that, you could do it
with less work than manual placement by doing this:

Create a group/csg and add a sphere to it. Move the sphere along X to
a position that is as far away from the middle of the wave as the
crest should be (half the vertical distance between position 7/8 and
14/15).
Press Duplicate. Reset To Defaults. 
- Enable Orbit. If you want it to take 16 spheres to repeat the wave,
enter 22.5 in the Orbit Z field (Rotate can be disabled again, or you
can leave it. Repeat will automatically be set to 15). 
- Increase Repeat if you want more than one wave. 
- Enable Translation and set the Z field to the horizontal distance
you want between spheres. 
- Enable the Attach To Same Parent. 
- Click OK. This will create a stairway spiral-like pattern.

Now you will have this snake pattern in one of the views (if you
followed along, it will be the front view).

You now need to select each sphere and set the Y component of the
translation value to 0. This is most easily done by selecting the
first one, double clicking in the Trans-Y field, typing '0' then
Enter. The press Ctrl-Left to select the next one. Repeat until done.

If you feel up to writing a script, you could use the LUA plugin to
create a script that places the spheres.

- Lutz
  email : lut### [at] stmuccom
  Web   : http://www.stmuc.com/moray

Post a reply to this message

> Hi sshelby, you recently wrote in moray.win:
>
> > I would like to be able to create a chain of  spheres in Moray that could be
> > moved in a snake-like fashion.
> I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean when you say that they
> should then be moved in a snake-like fashion? Do you want to animate
> them?

There is a Moray plugin by Mike Weber called B-Spline that is available in the
Plugins section of the Moray home page. It allows you to define a spline by moving
control points and will create a string of objects along that path. Sphere is one
of the objects. I don't know if it is exactly what you are looking for, but it
might be worth a look.

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Lutz,
The answer is yes. The movement I'm referring to would be in the form of an
animation, using the Enzmann plugin in Moray. I want to make it (group or
csg)follow a path, like a train on a track.
Steve

Lutz Kretzschmar <lut### [at] stmuccom> wrote in message
news:6ifostsj8q2bj0g9tl50g4mnbqs3vl8ecl@4ax.com...
> Hi sshelby, you recently wrote in moray.win:
>
> > I would like to be able to create a chain of  spheres in Moray that
could be
> > moved in a snake-like fashion.
> I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean when you say that they
> should then be moved in a snake-like fashion? Do you want to animate
> them?

Post a reply to this message

Hi sshelby, you recently wrote in moray.win:

> I want to make it (group or csg)follow a path, like a train on a track.
Ok, in that case I have no idea how to do it :-)

- Lutz
  email : lut### [at] stmuccom
  Web   : http://www.stmuc.com/moray

Post a reply to this message

Lutz Kretzschmar wrote:

> Hi sshelby, you recently wrote in moray.win:
>
> > I want to make it (group or csg)follow a path, like a train on a track.
> Ok, in that case I have no idea how to do it :-)

Hey Lutz,

Might be a good time to bug Zander about adding animation paths to the plugin
; }

Post a reply to this message

> Might be a good time to bug Zander about adding animation paths to the
plugin
> ; }
>

Word.

Marc

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marc ferguson wrote:
> Word.

Up.
-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.scifi-fantasy.com

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