Marionette help with Symbol that can be modified

[Lee Vaught]

Explanation:

IM trying to take the attached drawings and learn a bit about scripting or marionette along the way. I have attached a drawings that has a control box on top with a line representing the cable that moves in and out of the control box to lower the LED ball at the bottom. Im trying to figure out a way that I can just enter the balls height and the cable ( Line ) will adjust to fit between the motor and the led ball. It seems like it should be really easy. But i have not figured out the way. Can someone please help me figure out how to make this happen.

 

 

So is there a way to make this happen. It would b something like the Motors tool in Spotlight. I would just use this to adjust the ball and cable length. Please email me or reply back with any questions. I really want to learn how to do this. It will help me by using an actual object that I can work with like in the drawing. Any help is welcomed

SPECIAL SYMBOL.vwx

[SBarrettWalker]

Hi-

 

Here is a simple definition that draws a sphere directly below the chamfer as well as a line from the center of the chamfer to the center of the sphere. typing in a different number for "sphere height" will change the height and a different number for radius will change the size of the sphere.SPECIAL SYMBOL-sb.vwx

 

I hope this helps get you started!

[Lee Vaught]

Okay. I can see that i was definitely not looking at it the correct way. I should have thought out of the box. So now that Im thinking correctly. What is the best way to get this item into a symbol for that i can place  on the drawings that would let me have the option of making an array of them spaced 250mm apart. It would be based on where the string line is as the center.

 

IS it possible to make this into a symbol that I can place on a drawing and then either use 1 item or have it array them based of the 250mm mark where the line is. I hope im asking this the right way. But I totally get using the different tools in ways to make the code. Im going to make a bunch of symbols like this with the same function so this is amazing.. 

 

Thanks

 

Lee

[SBarrettWalker]

Well, with Marionette, you don't need to create symbols and them try to array them - the objects get created and arrayed at the same time. The most efficient way to do this is first to build a Marionette definition that creates the symbol you are trying to  build that has inputs for location and (at least for this example) sphere height. Then instead of giving the marionette definition just one point and just one height, give it a LIST of heights and a LIST of location. The script will build each individual object and array them simultaneously. (If you did this by hand it would be much more efficient to make the symbol first and then array it, but not with Marionette.)

 

The list of points you can make by using the Range, Series, or Sequence nodes - they each create series of numbers in a slightly different way. Then, if you have a worksheet or a spreadsheet or a text file that has the list of heights, you can use Marionette to import those numbers directly from the external file to create your input list of heights.