Turning on and off expressions

[8or]

I'm trying to animate an egg cracking. I've used expressions to set up a nice shake motion with noise etc.
The thing is - is there any way of turning off the expressions control over the egg at say frame 30 so that I can use shatter and the built in dynamics?? I know I could have a cut scene but I'd rather not. Any help would be a great help!

[warpcat]

I'm not entirely sure how you have the expression set up, but it could be as simple as adding a "onOff" attribute to a controller object, and multiplying the entire expression by the object.onOff value:
(expression) * object.onOff
So if the .onOff value is 1.0 the expression will solve as normal. If it's 0 the expression stops. Values inbetween will scale the animation down...

[hotliver]

This is how I do it. Lets just say I named my expression "zulu". In the script editor, I type:
______________
select zulu;
______________
Although this isn't necessary, I then make a set out of my selected expression so that it is very easy to select in the outliner.
You should notice that when you have an expression selected, it has a keyable attribute called "nodeState". When I want to animate the expression off, I set this attribute to "blocking" (although other selections may yield the same result), and then I key it. When I want it to turn it back on, I set it to "Normal" and key it.

hope this helps
Paul

[8or]

Thanks a million guys - knowing that it can be done is half the battle!