Animating along a Curve using Mash

Loeb

A cool way to animate and have it look good quickly, is to have your character respond to another object. A quick way to do that, is to have an object move along a curve.

MASH offers a super simple way to make that happen. Let's try it.

Create a Curve

We want to create a curve that loops so that an object can loop around your character and your character can duck to avoid it.

You learned a fast way to make a spring curve last week by making a helix, adjusting the INPUTS,

selecting an edge that goes along the entire helix, and going to Modify>Convert>PolyEdges to Curve

You can then delete the helix geometry and you have a curve shaped like a spring!

  • Center the Pivot on the curve. (Option + shift + c)
  • Rename the curve to "path"
  • Freeze Transformations (option + f)
  • Delete History (Option + shift + d)

  • Save (Command + s)

  • Create a sphere (Control + shift + o)

  • Move it over and scale it as you'd like
  • In the FX Module and shelf
  • Create a MASH Node

In the Attribute Editor

  • In the Mash Distribute node
    • Number of Points to 1

  • In the Mash1 Node

    • Add a Curve Node

  • In the MASH1 Curve Node

    • MMB drag the "path" curve to the Input Curves

  • Make sure your playback is set to Real Time
  • And your playback range is between 1 and at least 500
  • Hit Play

The sphere moves along the curve.

You can adjust the rate of the motion and other timing options in the Attribute Editor for the MashCurve

NOTE: Creating an animation along a curve that you then have your character duck or avoid, is a great way to think about building your animation out.