maya-surface-attract

Maya surface attract node will pull the vertices of the meshes towards the closest point on the surface based on the attract and bulge attributes.

Installation

• Extract the content of the .rar file anywhere on disk.
• Build the plugin for a specific Maya version.
• Drag the surface-attract.mel file in Maya to permanently install the script.

Compiling

Building the plugin using cmake will place the plugin in the plug-ins folder with a maya version divider. This will ensure the plug-in is compatible with the launched version of Maya.

1. Open Terminal

cd <PATH_TO_MODULE>
mkdir build/<MAYA_VERSION>
cd build/<MAYA_VERSION>
cmake -A x64 -T v141 -DMAYA_VERSION=<MAYA_VERSION> ../../
cmake --build . --target install --config Release

Usage

Once the plug-in is build and loaded a new surfaceAttract node can be created by selecting the meshes and running the cmds.deformer(type="surfaceAttract") command.

After this the surface needs to be manually connected into the inputSurface attribute on the node.

The attractRampU and attractRampV ramp is used to generate multiplier values for the parameter of the closest point on the surface. This can come in handy to generate a zipper effect. The attractRamp ramp is used to generate multiplier values for the falloff allowing for a smoother transition.

The bulgeDistance and bulgeStrength values are used to control the overall bulge effect with bulgeRamp being used to control the falloff.

Smoothing operations are in place to smooth vertices along the distance. For this the smoothingStep and smoothingIterations attributes can be used.