topic Re: How do I vary XGen primitive Width without the Width Ramp? in Maya Forum

How do I vary XGen primitive Width without the Width Ramp?

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 19:07:11 GMT

I'm currently using an older version of XGen to make my project compatible with my school's pipeline / renderfarm. Because of this, I don't have access to IG's awesome Width Ramp feature, which limits my ability vary the primitive's width along the primitive's length. Taper helps, but only gives me linear control in one direction (towards the tip).

Ideally I'd like to be able to thin the root, fatten the middle, then thin the tip. I imagine I could do that with expressions, but I don't know how to query the position along the length of the primitive. When I texture the primitive, i know that the position along the primitive length is the 'v' coordinate, but '$v' in the XGen expression editor references the 'v' texture coordinate of the surface the primitive grows out of.

Does anyone know how I could reference the position along the primitive's length in the XGen expression editor? Or how I could similarly vary the primitive width without the Width Ramp?

Re: How do I vary XGen primitive Width without the Width Ramp?

Michael_Todd — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 14:09:32 GMT

What Maya version are you using? There's been a width ramp in XGen for quite some time, to allow just for this.

Cheers

Re: How do I vary XGen primitive Width without the Width Ramp?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 18:43:11 GMT

Hey Michael,

Thanks for responding. The version we're using is Maya 2015. It's an unfortunate situation where most of the software on our pipeline is outdated and cannot be easily updated without some heavy reworking (hopefully they decide to do something about this soon!). In the meantime I'm working with what we got to be able to use our renderfarm.

As a reference, I've attached a screenshot to this post showing what the interface looks like. I figured a work around would be to use an expression to changed the width of the prim along its length (so .2 at root, .8 at middle, and .2 again at tip). But my guess is that generating the shape of the primitive is a more complicated process than that and can't be easily changed with a few variables... If accessing those attributes is too involved I'm ready to move on and let it be, but I was hoping there might be something I missed!