December 08th 2020 08:00:58am

FFX Align To Curve brings Houdini users a faster system for customizing orientation of geometry along the length of a curve. Working with point data directly, a user is easily able to develop in real-time their desired orientation data. A clear adjustable guide system shows exactly which direction your geometry will orient towards once copied onto the processed points. Scalable arrows reveal the primary tangentu orientation and travel direction along the curve. Auxiliary normal and bitangent markers reveal the other axis orientations.

Varying the roll, pitch, and yaw of each point along the curve is as simple as adjusting a few sliders. Animating something like a train or rail car can be easily done with the Offset feature, which will slide the points forwards or backwards along your source curve.

Available for purchase through the Orbolt website. Orbolt is a native service to Houdini, and allows for easy purchase and installation. You can click the Buy button to the right to be taken to product. Also you can login into Orbolt inside Houdini directly to sync and access your purchase of FFX Align To Curve.

Some features include:
• Guide opacity, scale, and color options.
• Offset parameter to animate travel along the length of the curve.
• Vary Roll, Pitch, and Yaw over the length of curve.
• Set/Modify pscale point attribute over the length of curve.
• Pscale randomization option.
• Set/Modify Cd point attribute over the length of curve.
• Separate head and tail outputs to easily add different geometry from main curve.

While Houdini does have two different native nodes that take similar approaches, both have pros and cons to them. FFX Align To Curve strives to offer a faster, and easier experience.

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