Anim8or Community

Just thinking about it...You could just use the position script and not use the orientation script.  That way you can use the normal animation keyframing methods for controlling orientation.  Unless there is some repetitive rule for the orientation behavior you are wanting, scripting is no better than manual.

Or perhaps, I am still not exactly grasping what it is you are wanting to do.

kreator,
I am not sure what you mean by roll.  Currently the script generates two controller scripts - one for position and the other for orientation.  The orientation is generated by reading the orientation of the spline.  Since the z-direction is along the spline, you effectively only get rotations about the x and y axes from the spline.  I could easily add a provision to generate rotations about the axes if I had a clearer idea of what you have in mind.
Do you want:
1) a static tilt relative to the spline?
2) a continuous rotation as it traverses the spline?
3) all the above, plus other stuff too?

If you can give me a vision of what you are looking for, I will sure attempt it.

Oh, and of course, you are very welcome!  I am glad to contribute to the greater glory of Anim8or!

Please see the response to your other similar post:

http://www.anim8or.com/smf/index.php?topic=951.msg6950#msg6950

Anim8or uses regular quaternions.  One can convert quaternions to Euler angles readily.  The formulas shown on the Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_between_quaternions_and_Euler_angles work.  In the nomenclature of the Wikipedia, the q0 is the same as w, q1 is x, etc.

If you need help writing a script to do the conversion, let me know.

Attached is an updated and expanded version of the script.  Following Steve's wishes, there is only a command version of the script.  To use the script, you must edit it with a text editor to change the parameters.  First, create a mesh named "target" to be the template where the "source" will be copied.  Create a mesh called "source" to be copied onto the "target" mesh.  The script is very highly documented, so you can always look at it in a text editor to see how it is constructed as well as the parameter explanations below.

Parameters:
1) Fixed rotations of the copies around the x, y, and z axes [xabsrot,yabsrot,zabsrot]
2) Variable rotations of the copies around the x, y, and z axes.  The variable rotations are random up to half the amount entered plus or minus the Fixed rotations in (1) above.[xrot,yrot,zrot]
3) Fraction of available copy positions to be used.  If you enter 1.0, all available copy positions are populated.  If you enter less than 1.0, that fraction of the points will be randomly distributed. [meshptfraction]
4) Number of copies per available copy position.  This can be a random number between a minimum and the maximum per copy position or it can always be the maximum number. [minusemesh,maxusemesh,usemeshrand]
5) Scale of each copy.  This can be fixed at some value or random between a minimum and maximum.[minscale,maxscale,scalerand]
6) An offset to allow you to "sink" the copy into the surface of the target.  It is entered as a fraction of the total y-axis length of the "source".[yoffsetfraction]
7) Set the original orientation of the copies to be either straight up and down along the y-axis or normal to the surface of the mesh at the copy position.[usenormals]
8) Set whether to use the unrotate "source" y minimum point as the attachment point to the "target" mesh or to use the new calculated y minimum point after all the rotations.[useorigmin]
9) Set the copy positions to be the vertices (mesh points) of the "target" mesh.[useverts]
10) Set the copy positions to be on the faces of the "target" mesh.  If this is set, there will the number of sides of the face of the "target" mesh plus one: one in the center, and one each between the center and the vertices of the face.[usefaces]
11) A random seed to alter the random elements above.  If you leave this the same, each time you run script you will get the same distribution of random numbers.[the integer in parenthesis of randseed]

To achieve the highest density for fur, hair, or grass, set the variable rotation, a relatively high number for maxusemesh, use the vertices and the faces.  If you have a curved surface for the "target", use normals to have the copies point directly away from the faces and vertices instead of straight "up".

Enjoy!

I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions.

Steve and everyone,
I will always write a command version and a parametric version, knowing that the parametric version will probably stop working at some point. With only ten parameters to work with, and larding all the points into a single shape, you are limited in what you can do in a parametric script.

I have already started trying to figure out how to orient the copies along the normals of the mesh point.  Hopefully, I will have that figured out soon.  It should be fairly straightforward to scatter objects across the faces.  I'll look into it.

csf,

Attached is the requested script.  I have simply converted Steve's spline.txt script to a parametric script.  It creates a tube along a spline that must be named "tubepath".  You can adjust the number of sides, the diameter, and the number of divisions.

*** Remember to convert the parametric shape to a mesh before using it
      in any other objects, in figures, or scenes.  It is totally dependent
      on the original "tubepath" spline while it remains
      a parametric shape.  As Steve stated: parametric scripts were never
      intended to work this way. ***