[Closed] Dependency Loop Workaround?

I’m writing a scripted plugin that uses the Assembly system… the same system that the Character Assembly uses. It’s really the same as a Group, except for that it has an actual node at its head, which can have parameters attached to it.

So what I’m doing is using this to pile LOD’s for a game into a single assembly. It is important that the LODs are part of the assembly so that they all move together. However, it is also important that I can keep track of which one is LOD0, LOD1 and so on, as easily as possible. My first pass tried making them actual #node parameters. However, I ran into a roadblock when Max gave me a dependency loop error when I had a single node as part of the assembly while also having it referenced as a parameter of the head of the assembly. I know that sentence is a little convoluted, but hopefully it makes sense.

The alternative methods that I can think of are pretty inconvenient to implement, so hopefully someone else has a better idea.

So far I’m pretty much thinking I need to have a table that says LOD0 = 1, where it would be referenced by assemblyHead.children[1], and LOD1 = 2 where assemblyHead.children[2]. Unfortunately, that will take some management that I don’t want to bother with. Why can’t I just keep a node reference in the parameter block at the same time? Is there such thing as an object ID that is independent of the node reference? (I think I’ve heard of such a thing… maybe I’ll poke around for that now and just post this)…

Thanks for any responses.