Introduction  General Tab  Alignment Tab  Distribution Tab  Effects Tab  SplineSPREAD Shader  Documentation & Conclusion

Alignment Tab

Alignment Tab.

The Alignment Tab as the name suggest handles the alignment of objects / clones. There are 4 modes. When you select a mode further options pertaining to that mode become visible:

• None - This is position only. Basically the clones or objects take on the rotation of the original object or objects. If they were animated then the animation will be retained and passed on to clones if clones are generated.
• Tangential - Objects or clones point along their Z axis. If the objects have animation this is overridden. The Along Trajectory (Animation Only) option in Tangential mode alters the trajectory of the objects or clones when you use / enable something like scattering. Disabled and the obejcts or clones will follow the trajectory of the orginal spline even though the objects or clones may be offset to the spline. However enabling this option will see the objects or clones point in the direction that they themselves are going. This is best demonstrated in the following animation.

• Target - The objects or clones will point along their Z axis at a target object. You can define a second object as an Up Vector to prevent flipping. The target object in the example below is a bullseye.
• Static - In this mode all objects or clones will be aligned in a fixed angle and stay at this angle even though they may be moving around the spline. The angle is defined manually in 3 rotation fields. The angle like most things can be animated.

Below is a screen capture of the 4 types of alignment in action. The original Pyramid is animated rotating in the H axis. The HUD element displays what the current alignment type which can be animated as it is here. Only when the Alignment type is None will the original rotation animation be used.

The Random Panel of settings allows you randomize the rotation of the objects or clones to make them look more chaotic. Very handy for simulating particles. The intensity can be defined using the slider and the maximum rotation for each of the 3 axes can be defined. As usual these settings can be animated. Further control can be achieved using a spline curve. The start of the spline curve is clones or objects at the beginning of the path spline and the end of the spline curve controls clones or objects at the end of the path spline. Below is a screen capture where I have animated the spline curve changing. The Alignment type is Tangential and you can see the clone's alignment changing away from tangential.

The Incremental Rotation Panel is where you need rotation between each object or clone. A chain like in the image below is a prime example of this where the rotation between each link is 90 degrees. One thing that I found with the chain is that you either need to have to the Z axis pointing the right way by making the Sweepnurbs object editable and then rotating the axis or as I did, I dropped the Sweepnurbs object under a Null object and then rotated the Sweepnurbs object so that it was orientated correctly. That said, it is easier to set up chain links using SplineSPREAD than by doing it with MoGraph.

An example of Incremental Rotation.

Introduction  General Tab  Alignment Tab  Distribution Tab  Effects Tab  SplineSPREAD Shader  Documentation & Conclusion