polyChipOff

[steeleb]

I have exploded a sphere into lots of seperate faces using extract face, and I want to animate the local Z translate value for each polyChipOff so the pieces fly outwards over time. BUT, how can I parent or attach other Polygon objects to each face so that they inherit the motion created by animating the local Z translate value. Any input would be greatly appreciated, I've been scouring the help files and manuals for a day to no avail.

Regards

Ben Steele

[stevesayer]

Hrmmm. What effect are you trying to achieve, exactly?

Unless there's something major I'm missing, it sounds like you should be working with particles rather than poly faces.

Are the poly faces going to be rendered, or are you just using them as the basis for the motion of these other objects?

-Steve

[steeleb]

Umm, ok. What I have is a sphere that is elongated to resemble a football. It breaks up into squares, PAL sized/aspect, but still curved and made up of many faces. When I select a number of faces and remove them with extract I can animate the local Z translate which is an easier way of moving all the faces outwards, but if they are held together (keep faces together) they grow in scale (undesirable). I was going to break apart a detailed sphere, then do the animated polyChipOff translate on a less detailed one where 1 face was moving the detailed sections of the first sphere. Does that make sense?

[stevesayer]

I see... so your less-detailed sphere would not actually be rendered, then? --It would just be the invisible base on which the more detailed sections 'ride'?

I'm not by any means an expert on such matters, but my initial feeling is that using the PolyChipOff tool to produce animation is not the best/simplest/most efficient way to go about it. It's really meant as a modelling tool... and I don't know how you might go about attaching the high-res sections to the low-res polys properly and controllably.

I would recommend you think about other techniques, such as splitting your high-detail poly object into many objects (as many as there are shards), and making them dynamic... or using a particle object with your high-res geometry pieces instanced to it to control the motion.

Sorry I can't be of more direct help. Good luck!

-Steve

[steeleb]

I think I've worked out a simpler way of doing it, its a convaluted method but it just may work. Thanks for your input, if I get back to the job today and it works I'll let you know.