[Closed] Adding forces to spring controllers with maxscript

nope… just as there is an .addSpring() method in the interface, there should have been a .addForce() . Or the parameter be made of variable size

There is a work-around, but it’s not very proper…

1. create a lot of compatible spacewarps… Gravities will do
2. add those to the External Forces list for a Spring constraint
3. file > save selected the object that constraint is on
   –
   when needing a new spring constraint, or having to enlarge an existing one, don’t generate one, but…
4. load the object from the saved file (mergeMaxFile())
5. select it
6. switch to the motion panel (max motion mode)
7. copy the controller previously set up
   ( if extending an existing one, fill the copy with the existing one’s forces, add the other forces, and assign )

You should find that the constraint’s .forceNode list is full of ‘undefined’s. In the UI these are presented as “<deleted>”. The constraint doesn’t care much about these, but it does give you as many slots to put forces into as you’d like… within the limit of how many you had added in step 2 anyway… hence ‘a lot’… make sure you’ve got some headroom to work with

If you don’t like all the “<deleted>” bits, just set one of the slots to some spacewarp, then delete that spacewarp; that appears to reset the constraint’s innards.

fwiw… I don’t know why ‘save selected’ doesn’t include the forces picked – it certainly includes any nodes picked. So just in case that’s a bug that’d get fixed in the future, check your scene state after merging the object in… make sure none of those forces from Step 1 are merged in as well (and if they are, delete them).

Steps 5 and 6 are a bit odd as well, but seems there’s some initialization bit required.

a = $.position.controller.forcenode
#(undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined)
$.position.controller.forcenode[1] = gravity()
** system exception **
max motion mode
OK
$.position.controller.forcenode[1] = gravity()
$Gravity:Gravity01 @ [0.000000,0.000000,0.000000]

There’s probably something else that’ll force it to initialize as well – haven’t tried