Set Always in vector parameters

[BOON]

Hi all,

Is there a simple way I can say "set always" in x and z, but "set initial" in y?

[anim]

kind of,

set parm to Set Always and put the values you want to x and z but to y write $<parmname>

so if the parm tuple is called vel then put $vely in vely parm to reuse actual value and hence behave like it was Set Never

to really get Set Initial behaviour you would need to initialize it on the first frame, so it would be like if($SF==1, 10, $vely)

[BOON]

maybe what you said is not what I should be doing for my case, or I'm missing something out. So here's my example file.

I'm trying to set my constraint position x and z to "set always" because it's a deforming geo, but I want y to "set initial" so it would fall accordingly. From the info you provided in the earlier post, I came up with if ($F==1, ch("../objectposy"), $worldspaceposy), but it still behaved like "set always".

Could you please tell me what am I doing wrong here?

deform_constraint_setalways.hipnc

[anim]

according to what you've written you used it correctly and it indeed does Set Always for X and Z and Set Initial for Y

so if you explore details view you should notice that X and Z are updated every frame (if changed) and Y is not, since it is just set on $F == 1 and then just reused the previous value ($SF might have been better, but it's the same for this case)

the other thing is that, from your file is apparent that you are deforming only in X axis, so if you are taking the centroid from each piece, only X value will change

in that case, Y will remain static even without imitating the Set Initial mode (btw there is centroid() function so you can simplify averaging bbox() extremes with that)

I'm a little puzzled from what you are expecting and how you want your constraints to behave

you need to understand that bbox or centroid from the piece Geometry data will return in local space and that's why only X axis is updating, and Y is set to the same value, so it's pointless if it's Set Always or Set Initial, result is the same

also Set Always and Set Initial for that position doesn't meant that it will not be constrained in that axis, it will simply either update the value or not (in this case position of the constraint)

so if you want to update Y to actual world position you can try getting piece position data directly (instead of just local Y centroid), in which case it will stop being constrained in Y axis, but the result may not be what you are expecting