ALE Question
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Okay, I want to do something with an ALE, but I don’t know how, or even if it’s possible.
What I want to do is define the position of an emitter, and have that position alter with time. Unfortunately, there is little documentation on ALE files, and what little there is is not very insightful. To those ALE gurus, any ideas?
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The Node_Transform property is what you want. Specifically, the three first items in it control XYZ position (the two Headers and the first Entry).
In order to animate these, however, you need to delve a little deeper. The basic pattern is Header, HFlag, HTail or Entry, EFlag, ETail. You’ll want to add SHeader and SFlag or SEntry and SFlag after the STail/ETail line. SHFlag/SFlag is just zero, never seen a use for anything else. SHeader/SEntry contains the interesting stuff in the form of a repeating pattern <time>, <position>, <ease in=“”>, <ease out=“”>. If you want the animation to repeat (be sure to make it loop properly!) set the HTail/ETail to 16, otherwise 1 will do.
This is an example from the Discovery jumpdrive effect I created, it’s a fairly intricate example but should give you a rough idea of what’s happening. The emitter is doing corkscrews around the Z axis.
Node_Transform = { Flag = 4 Header = 0.0000000000000000, 0.0000000000000000 HFlag = 4 HTail = 16 SHeader = 0, 600, 0, -424.26, 0.5, 424.26, -424.26, -600, 1, 0, -600, -424.26, 1.5, -424.26, -424.26, 0, 2, -600, 0, 424.26, 2.5, -424.26, 424.26, 600, 3, 0, 600, 424.26, 3.5, 424.26, 424.26, 0 SHFlag = 0 Header = 0.0000000000000000, 0.0000000000000000 HFlag = 4 HTail = 16 SHeader = 0, 0, -600, 424.26, 0.5, -424.26, -424.26, 0, 1, -600, 0, -424.26, 1.5, -424.26, 424.26, -600, 2, 0, 600, -424.26, 2.5, 424.26, 424.26, 0, 3, 600, 0, 424.26, 3.5, 424.26, -424.26, 600 SHFlag = 0 Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 0.0000000000000000 EFlag = 4 EType = 1 ETail = 16 SEntry = 0, 600, 0, 0, 2, -600, 0, 0, 4, 600, 0, 0 SFlag = 0 Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 0.0000000000000000 EFlag = 4 EType = 1 ETail = 0 Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 0.0000000000000000 EFlag = 4 EType = 1 ETail = 0 Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 0.0000000000000000 EFlag = 4 EType = 1 ETail = 0 Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 0.5000000000000000 EFlag = 4 EType = 1 ETail = 0 Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 0.5000000000000000 EFlag = 4 EType = 1 ETail = 0 Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 100000000.0000000000000000 EFlag = 4 EType = 1 ETail = 0 }Hope this helps!</ease></ease></position></time>
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Excellent! This is exactly what I was looking for.
I have a question, however:
SHeader = 0, 600, 0, -424.26Is this format:
<time><x><y><z>or some other format? If it is, is y the vertical direction, as always? What are x and z? I only need two of the directions (I don’t need the direction of motion), so that’s y and either x or z, but which?
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Hang on, I think I got it. This thread is very helpful.
However, as a question, what’s the difference between <ease in=“”>and <ease out=“”>, what do they do, and what sort of values should they have?</ease></ease></z></y></x></time>
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It’s a little hard to explain, but as far as I can tell they work exactly like animation easing in 3ds Max if you know what I’m talking about. They’re essentially giving the rate (be it meters per second or degrees per second) of movement at the keyframe you have defined. Ease in defines how fast it should be coming in, while ease out defines how fast it should be going out.
The thing to note is that if you define no ease in/ease out (ie leave them at zero), the animation will actually slow down to a standstill at each keyframe. In order to have smooth motion, you need to calculate rates. This is why all of them have rates in the effect I’ve posted.
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Uh, as I said, it’s a rate, so it’s just whatever speed you want it to go at that that keyframe?
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Ease in and out is the same thing as when driving a car, acceleration (ease in) and deceleration (ease out).
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Interesting topic about ale reapetition… So I’ve a question too. Is it possible to have an effect that reapet only 2 or 3 time. Just to know if it is possible to have longer timed laser.
