Convert Motion Trail to Editable Spline?

[marykayo]

I want to convert a motion trail to an editable spline; then work on the spline; then attach attach an IK handle to the spline as a path. Anybody help me with this?

[gmask]

Ok.. this is a bit crude but does what you ask.. Basically
$S is your start framme and $E is your end frame. The script goes through and records the position of the object in $object and then creates a curve at the end.

//----start
int $S=1;
int $E=10;
string $object="nurbsSphere1";

float $tx=0;
float $ty=0;
float $tz=0;
string $makecurve;
string $knots;
int $k=0;

$makecurve="curve -d 1 ";

while($S<=$E){
currentTime $S;
eval("$tx=`getAttr "+$object+".tx`");
eval("$ty=`getAttr "+$object+".ty`");
eval("$tz=`getAttr "+$object+".tz`");
$knots=$knots+" -k "+$k;
$makecurve=$makecurve+" -p "+$tx+" "+$ty+" "+$tz;
print $makecurve;
print "n";
$S++;
$k++;

};
$makecurve=$makecurve+$k ;

eval $makecurve;
//----end

[marykayo]

Is $object supposed to be the motion trail itself or the joint that is making the trail? I tried making the object the motion trail itself, and I got a curve that was simply a straight line on the ground. I tried using the wrist of my caracter as the object, and the erroe occurred that no object matched joint_wrist.tx. More help gmask? I'm almost there! (THANKS!!!)

[gmask]

I take it that the joint itself doesn't have curves on it? I think what you can do is to constrain a locator or an object to the joint and use that as the $object. Than you'll have to constrain the joint to the locator if you are going to use the generated path as a motion path for the joint.

Or it could be that the error you got is because you need to assign the fullpath name of the joint to $object if there is another joint with the same name in the scene.

[mallen]

I looked over the oringal script and changed it so it would be a bit more usefull (I ended up getting a staright line the first time I ran it, I'm no script wizard but I think the evals weren't getting set to the right positions). I've tested this on a couple of scenes and it should work. Just select your object you wish to create a motion spile from and run it. The script will create a spline based on the current playback range.

{
int $S= playbackOptions -q -min;
int $E= playbackOptions -q -max;

string $object[] = ls -sl;
$objectX = $object[0] + ".tx";
$objectY = $object[0] + ".ty";
$objectZ = $object[0] + ".tz";

float $tx=0;
float $ty=0;
float $tz=0;

string $makecurve;
string $knots;
int $k=0;

$makecurve="curve -d 1 ";

while($S<=$E)
{
currentTime $S;
$tx=`getAttr $objectX`;
$ty=`getAttr $objectY`;
$tz=`getAttr $objectZ`;
$knots=$knots+" -k "+$k;
$makecurve= $makecurve+" -p "+$tx+" "+$ty+" "+$tz;
print $makecurve;
print "n";
$S++;
$k++;
}

$makecurve=$makecurve+$k ;
eval $makecurve;
}

[ombre]

I was looking for a solution to convert my motion trail directly into a spline and found this topic. Thank you so much guys, it helped me save time!!

Just in case someone else you stop by, here is a small modification I made, because when I used the script from 

Mallen, I had an offset issue, due to the fact that the object I was creating the spline from had a parent with rotate values above it.

So I slightly modified the script to get the world space values through xform command, instead of the translates of the object.
Hope I can help:

{

int $S= playbackOptions -q -min;

int $E= playbackOptions -q -max;

string $object[] = ls -sl;

$objectX = $object[0] + ".tx";

$objectY = $object[0] + ".ty";

$objectZ = $object[0] + ".tz";

string $makecurve;

string $knots;

int $k=0;

vector $t;

$makecurve="curve -d 1 ";

while($S<=$E)

{

currentTime $S;

$t=xform -q -ws -t $object[0];

float $tx=$t.x;

float $ty=$t.y;

float $tz=$t.z;

$knots=$knots+" -k "+$k;

$makecurve= $makecurve+" -p "+$tx+" "+$ty+" "+$tz;

print $makecurve;

print "n";

$S++;

$k++;

}

$makecurve=$makecurve+$k ;

eval $makecurve;

}

Cheers! 

/users/mallen/forums