Custom Node Output Behavior

[muffin232]

Hey all,

I have a little bit of a special situation that I was hoping someone could help me with. It concerns the output of a c++ written maya node and its behavior when connected to another object/channel. Normally when you connect something in the dag to another object that channel gets completely locked by the connection itself. Meaning you cannot move/rotate the object in question, if the connection is made to translate/rotate, for example. However I know that there are at least one node (that ships with maya) that you can do this with, its connected while you can still modify the value it drives. In this case I am refering to the 'blendWeighted' node (all keyframe fcurve nodes also has this behavior btw).

Is there anyone that has any ideas how to configure my own output attribute on a custom node so that it behaves in this way? Or maybe this is a setting on the input plug even!? I am not sure. Anyone? A different baseclass other than MPxNode to derive from maybe?

I assume this is possible to setup since many nodes do display this behavior. But I have yet to find a way todo it. Anyone?

/Matte

[joojaa]

however I know that there are at least one node

Contsraint nodes have this property. So if you make a constraint then maya will have an option for this. See :

MPxConstraint

[muffin232]

Thanks for the suggestion Joojaa. The solution ended up being far more easier though. Just directly using a function on the MPxNode class;

bool isPassiveOutput(const MPlug &plug) const
{
    if( plug == "Your Plug MObject")
        return true;
    if( plug == "Your Plug MObject")
        return true;
     . . . . . 
}

The function itself seems to run on a plug by plug basis, so it needs to return true for all MObject plugs that you want to be passive.

/Matte

[chrisgibbs]

Hey Matte, can you elaborate on how you managed to get this capability for your output attribute?

[muffin232]

chris; Oops, I realize its now almost 4 months ago since this post. Sorry about that. However if you havnt already figured this one out yourself, in what way would you like me to elaborate more on this?

/Matte

"TheMatte" - A Tech-Anim Site