Can anybody tell me anything useful about Walk Path splines?

For instance, I set up a walk path in Poser and moved the last point to be at about Z=0 and X=-0.4 but in the scene file, the last point is:

pt 0.040000 0.000000 3.200000

Okay...  That doesn't seem to make sense - the X value should be negative and the Z value should be ~0.0.  As all the other points appear to be absolute coordinates, why the flub here?

Here's the full set of points from the scene file:

    numControlPts        6
    pt    -0.040000 0.000000 -0.200000
    pt    0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
    pt    -0.042045 0.000000 1.312602
    pt    -1.134637 0.000000 1.224424
    pt    -0.790316 0.000000 -0.118770
    pt    0.040000 0.000000 3.200000

The spline should start at about the origin (as evidenced) go positive on the Z-Axis and curve back to the X-Y plane (a big 'C').

Thanks,
Robert

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

Oh, I see.  The first and last points are just control points for the tangent on either end of the path.  That ought to be interesting to reproduce...

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

Yep, you got it!

You probably know the rest, but for the benifit of others who may follow the thread I'll spell it out.

The three numbers in each node ("pt" line)  represent x, y, and z respectivly in Poser Units.

The first and last nodes are not part of the path as walked, they are only used to set the curve. The second node is the first part of the path as walked, and second from last node is the last node walked.

When the second node (first walked node) has a value of zero for all three numbers, it will be at the center of rotation of the prop.

All values for the nodes are relitive to the translations, rotations, and scale of the path prop.

Good to understand this stuff, but luckily the exercise turned out to be just that.  When one saves a scene with a Walk Designer setup, the animation already contains all of the motion (walk) and travel (spline following).

In Cinema 4D, the same can be done by adding a spline, adding an 'Align to Spline' tag to the object using the z-axis as reference.  With iPP, you then apply a walk animation pose and set the tracks to repeat.  My plugin doesn't yet have a 'Walk Designer' feature, but you can have any locomotive animation repeat and follow a spline for similar results.

Thanks!

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone