Controlling Normals

[platypus]

I have a Grid SOP that I appended a Point SOP to and then plugged in expressions for the x and z positions, in order to get a log spiral (as in the "expression cookbook" part of the documentation)... i then created a circle and have copied it to the spiral points.

problem is that I can't seem to get the circles to align properly, ie all aligned towards the center of the spiral. cant even seem to get them to simply align to each point properly in order to create a "tube" of cicles either. they keep on ending up flattened out. (see image)

i have tried appending a second Point SOP to the spiral, using "add normal", etc... but no luck.

any suggestions?

[platypus]

oops... sorry about the double post. not quite sure what happened there.

[Marc]

Don't worry, I fixed it

As for the normals. You may want to take a look at the flownormals vex SOP written by charles. Its in the codex somewhere (geometry probably).

That should help you control your normals better.

Cheers

Marc

oh, uh.... also, you could try using sweep instead of copy. That will give you better results without messing with the normals.

[platypus]

ahhh! yes indeed, the Sweep SOP did the trick.

if it were a snake, it would've bit me.

thanks Marc.

[Marc]

good thing it wasn't a snake then.... .... ouch.

Marc