Jiggle channel node

Creates a jiggling effect in the translate channels passed in.

See also: Spring, Lag

This CHOP creates a jiggling effect in the translate channels passed in. All channels ending in tx,ty, and tz are processed as a vector. If one of these translate vectors is missing a component, it is ignored.

Using Jiggle

  1. Select the object that will jiggle.

  2. Click the Jiggle tool on the Modify tab of the shelf.

  3. Select the object to follow and press Enter .

    The parameters of the Jiggle CHOP will pop up.

Parameters

Jiggle

Stiffness

How tight the jiggle is. Values closer to zero will cause the translate values to stray more from their original values. Values closer to one will result in very close solutions.

Damping

The amount of damping on jiggle oscillations. More damping reduces oscillating around abrupt changes in direction.

Limit

This controls how far away the point is allowed to stray from the original value before it starts being pulled towards it.

Flex Amount

This controls the strength of the spring. Larger values will cause the translate values to stray more from their original values.

Multiplier

This controls a post-scaling effect on the values of the channel.

Reference

This gives an object path that the resulting values would be relative to. Note that the Multiplier is applied in the reference space.

Common

Some of these parameters may not be avaiable on all CHOP nodes.

Scope

To determine which channels get affected, some CHOPs have a scope string. Patterns can be used in the scope, for example * (match all), and ? (match single character).

The following are examples of possible channel name matching options:

chan2

Matches a single channel name.

chan3 tx ty tz

Matches four channel names, separated by spaces.

chan*

Matches each channel that starts with chan.

*foot*

Matches each channel that has foot in it.

t?

The ? matches a single character. t? matches two-character channels starting with t.

r[xyz]

Matches channels rx, ry and rz.

blend[3-7:2]

Matches number ranges giving blend3, blend5, and blend7.

blend[2-3,5,13]

Matches channels blend2, blend3, blend5, blend13.

t[xyz]

[xyz]matches three characters, giving channels tx, ty and tz.

Sample Rate Match

The Sample Rate Match Options handle cases where multiple input CHOPs’ sample rates are different.

Resample At First Input’s Rate

Use rate of first input to resample others.

Resample At Maximum Rate

Resample to highest sample rate.

Resample At Minimum Rate

Resample to the lowest sample rate.

Error if Rates Differ

Does not accept conflicting sample rates.

Units

The units for which time parameters are specified.

For example, you can specify the amount of time a lag should last for in seconds (default), frames (at the Houdini FPS), or samples (in the CHOP’s sample rate).

Note

When you change the Units parameter, it does not convert the existing parameters to the new units.

Time Slice

Time Slicing is a feature which boosts cooking performance and reduces memory usage. Traditionally, CHOPs calculate the channel over its entire frame range. If the channel does need to be evaluated every frame, then cooking the entire range of the channel is unnecessary. It is more efficient to calculate only the fraction of the channel that is needed. This fraction is known as a Time Slice.

Unload

Causes the memory consumed by a CHOP to be released after it is cooked and the data passed to the next CHOP.

Export Prefix

The Export prefix is prepended to CHOP channel names to determine where to export to.

For example, if the CHOP channel was named geo1:tx, and the prefix was /obj, the channel would be exported to /obj/geo1/tx.

Note

You can leave the Export Prefix blank, but then your CHOP track names need to be absolute paths, such as obj:geo1:tx.

Graph Color

Every CHOP has this option. Each CHOP gets a default color assigned for display in the Graph port, but you can override the color in the Common page under Graph Color. There are 36 RGB color combinations in the Palette.

Graph Color Step

When the graph displays the animation curves and a CHOP has two or more channels, this defines the difference in color from one channel to the next, giving a rainbow spectrum of colors.

Usages in other examples

Example name Example for