How can I connectAttr a float type to a string...?

[naughty]

I have a plusMinusAverage node called myDensity
and an annotation node called showMyDensity

the pma node myDensity has incoming connections from elsewhere and when these change I'd like the text on the annotation node to update in exactly the same way that the "distance" tool readout works.

ideally I want to do this:

connectAttr density.output1D showDensity.text ;

but of course you can't connect attributes of different types (or so the MEL reference tells me)

does anybody know how this can be achieved...?

is there a node which will take in a particular type (ie float) and output a string...?

At the moment I'm using a scriptJob with the -ac flag to update the annotation text but that's a pretty unelegant solution and it doesn't allow the annotation to update "on the fly" like the distance tool can do.

besides, scriptJobs scare me.

:nathaN

[joojaa]

umm... is this absolutely sper duper important function to sacrafice the speed with?

You could do an expression that updates this but (it can do typeconversion, but remeber settatr uses a lot more than is apparent)... Then parse the string in this expression and connect that to the input (direct connection prefeerably id test this but im busy... well partialy!)

[naughty]

erm.. I kind of looked into expression nodes but I couldn't figure out how to input a float or how to output a string from them...?

They don't seem to work like the other nodes I used and I don't even know anything about using basic expressions...

could you perhaps elaborate please?

[naughty]

I tried an expression solution:

createNode "expression" -n "densityText";
setAttr densityText.e -type "string" "showDensity.text = density.output1D";

but that just gives me the error:

// Error: Attributes must be of float, integer, or boolean types: text //

HELP!!!!

[joojaa]

setAttr showDensity.text -type "string" (density.output1D +" is a very stupid, and in no way usefull for anything");

seems to be the only way via expressions

just out of curuosity what do you expect to gain form this? Waste of computational power?

Notes are mant for just that notes nothing fancy like a speradsheet calculator...

[naughty]

joojaa, if you can't see the usefulness of annotation nodes for more than just static labels then that's sad.

Maya is severely lacking in decent measuring tools. It has distance and that's great, easy to use and dynamically updating. but what about anything else? angle? volume? weight?

why can't I annotate any object with it's height measurement or it's width? or even just it's .translateY attribute?

I want to be able to annotate objects with useful readouts that can change dynamically as the relevent attribute does.

Just cos somebody is not using maya to build huge breasted babes or blindingly shiny cars out of NURBS or because you don't understand what they're doing doesn't mean what they're trying to do is useless.

Maya is supposed to be about connecting nodes and attributes together so this shouldn't be such a big deal.

besides, that example you gave merely changes the annotation once. it doesn't dynamically connect or update it.

[campbell]

create a single particle shape. addAttr a float to the shape. change render type to numeric, pop the added attr into the attribName field generated after hitting the current redner type button. connect your numeric values of interest into the float. parent the particle in an appropriate spot, if you want to use the annotatn arrow, just create an empty stringed annot and pop the particle under it.

yeah, i find dynamic annotations very handy too, esp during development phases where you want to keep your eye on a number of interacting paramters.

this is a little script i wrote for automating the task,
www.users.on.net/neilandbron/cgi-bin/download.cgi?download=annoPart.mel

[naughty]

You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. That script's f*kin' genius... so it was particles I needed all along and not an annotation eh?... well you learn something new every day...

I've never used particles before..? I'll have to check out the reference on them to find out what else they can do... they might be quite useful for some other things I'm toying with...

thanks Campbell, you've hit the nail bang on the head once again.

:nathaN