Constraints Lagging

[resort-sand]

Hello
It is all in the title, I am attaching an Spline to stick to an Alembic surface, I thought the best solution will be to create a tracer object that connects nulls that have a clamp to the surface with the mesh, the constraint works perfectly to create the sticking Nulls, but the tracer spline lags even though the Nulls don't lag.
I would take any solution to just have an spline to stick to an animated mesh surface if there is other ideas.
I appreciate this bottle neck that slows a lot the simple thing I am trying to achieve

Best regards

Here is a link to the alembic file in case: https://we.tl/t-si2mdfn4Ix

lagging.c4d

[Dr. Sassi]

Hi resort-sand,

Sorry for the delay; I had to test some scenarios.

The workflow that leads to the results is below.

I selected the nearest points to your location with the Constraints and stored them in a point selection.

This allowed to set up a Matrix Object, using the Point selection.

From there, XPresso can read the data and supply it to the Nulls.

The Nulls can then be stored in an Animation Clip (Recording the Expression)

Now, the data for the Nulls is available when needed in the scene. This means the Xpresso tag needs to be dissabled

The Sweep can now work and shows no delay. If there is a constant one—or two-frame delay, the Clip in the Motion System can be moved.

I'm unaware of a faster way, and I tried various versions with Shift Priority.

Here is the file back.
https://stcineversityprod02.blob.core.windows.net/$web/Cineversity_Forum_Support/2024_PROJECTS_DRS/20240719_CV4_2024_drs_24_CAmt_01.c4d.zip

My best wishes for your project

[resort-sand]

Thanks a lot Dr. Sassi, I will try to replicate the same workflow again, if I have questions, I will allow myself to come back to you, all the best

[Dr. Sassi]

Hi resort-sand,

I hope it works for you, but please never hesitate to ask. I'm happy to look into it.

All the best

[resort-sand]

Hello Dr.

I think I am not following how exactly you can record (bake) nulls position with the motion clip. However here is what I am doing to bake the main Nulls:

1-Select points on the mesh I wanna create the spline around and follow (done)
2-create Matrix object using points selection (done)
3-Create a list of Nulls that their number = points selection (Done)
4-Add the the created Nulls to the link list inside XPresso tag, and converting the XPresso tag to Generator mode with a high priority number (Done)
5-Now this is the part where I am confused, I never tried to use the motion clip system before. So I ended up by baking the position for each null using the bake function in the animation curve function (Done)

However, now it is very tricky as a pipeline for complex shots, in case I wanna add points, modify tangents, offset the points off the mesh a bit....etc.

In order to add a 2nd layer of animation, in case I wanna modify the already keyframes position of the control Nulls that will create the spline ? My work around was to create a child Null of each baked Null and create the Tracer object from those selected ones instead of the original Baked ones.

Anyhow, with your help, I managed to create the complex workflow that should be a lot easier if there were no lagging issue

I thank you

[Dr. Sassi]

Hi resort-sand,

Sorry about the many steps. When I find something faster, I will add this here.

I explored how to do it with Simulation, perhaps with very high Sticky values, e.g., 100 (Rope and Collider both need to be sticky). You might get something.

Enjoy your Sunday