Geometry Chop

[cspears2002]

CHOPs make my head explode, so I decided to check out the CHOPs tutorials in the Old School Blog. I just completed Part 1 of deforming geometry with CHOPs. I found the lecture enlightening and challengine.

However, I am still not quite sure what the Geometry CHOP is doing. When I look at the graph of this CHOP, I see the values for the positions of points in x, y, z sampled over time. I don't understand this because I am not animating the points. What exactly is going on? I'll include my hip file.

chops_v01.hipnc

[aracid]

ifs not sampling the movement over time, its using the $F to sample the point number of the corresponding channel and represent this on a "timeline" under chops.

If u have the method set to static under ur geometry chop, and press "d" over the chops display, little dots will appear, then set ur graph too graph per single channel, then set 3 graphs.

bring up a separate details window of that sop ur loading, and u'll see that the value of the first point under x ie P[x], corresponds with the channel tx value under chops, (by grabbing the little dot, u'll see value, its the same.)

does that help u connect the two?

[rdg]

When I look at the graph of this CHOP, I see the values for the positions of points in x, y, z sampled over time. I don't understand this because I am not animating the points.

In case of the geometry chop the x-axis does not display the time but the point number.

CHOPs don't need to be time dependent. They can display almost(?) any(?) kind of numeric data.

Modelling with CHOPs means: mapping time ($F) to points ($PT) or vice-versa.

I hope you don't mind I put aracid's post in my own words.

Georg