Curves

Series of tools for working with curves.

• Set Color – basic object coloring that detects and colors shapes as well.
• Grouping tools – Group Me, Group In Place, Transform Here, Copy pivot
• Loc me and update loc from Locinator
• Curve creation tool including specialized master control options
  • Modes:
    • Constrain – uses constraints to drive objects
    • ShapeParent – shape parents the control to the objects
    • Parent – parents the objects to the control
    • ChildOf – makes the curve a child of the object
  • Constraints(only works with Constrain mode)
    • parent
    • point/orient
    • point
    • orient
    • Scale
  • Rotate Order – adds an animatable attribute to the control which drives that objects, it’s driven object and groups
  • +Group – adds an extra constraint group to a control setup
  • LockNHide- locks and hides those attributes which our control won’t be affecting
  • Heir – maintain the heiararchal relationships
    • match – recreates the heirarchy with the controls
    • maintain – maintains via contraints on the control’s master group
• Text Curve objects – updateable text curve object creation and updating
• Utilities:
  • Objects to Curve – draws curve through a selection of objects
  • shapeParent- Standard maya shape parent
  • shapeParentInPlace – does what it says, parent shapes a curve to a transform at it current position
  • Replace Shapes – tool to replace the shapes of an existing curve control
  • curveToPython – generates a python command to recreate a curve (compound curves included)
  • combineCurves – combines…curves

Common issues:

• Closed curves – currently, the curve exporter doesn’t support fully closed curves. If you make a curve circle with maya, it needs to be open for the exporter to work right. Change the sweep to 359 instead of 360 and it’ll work fine.