Using Circuits
Introduction
Circuits are paths you must create within a scene that actors, drone cameras and vehicles will follow.
Circuit requirements and asset behavior
Before an actor or a drone will move, a circuit must be created first and then assigned to it. If an actor or a drone camera does not have a circuit assigned to it, it will remain stationary (unless it is attached to another asset that does move).
Vehicles behave differently, without a circuit assigned to it, a vehicle will look for waypoints embedded in the scene and will attempt to use the circuit defined by them. If there are no embedded waypoints, the vehicle will drive randomly. To ensure that a vehicle does not move it must be defined as stationary when placed in the scene. If a vehicle has a circuit assigned to it, it will behave just like an actor or drone camera.
In all cases, the actor, drone camera or vehicle will move to the nearest way point in the assigned circuit and then follow the circuit.
A circuit can be assigned to any number of assets but each asset can be assigned only one circuit.
Circuit topologies
Circuits consist of waypoints connected into circuits or meshes. A waypoint can have any number of incoming and outgoing connections, when exiting a waypoint with multiple outgoing connections, an asset will choose randomly on an equal likelihood basis using a seed value to ensure repeatability.
Circuits and generators
Circuits can be assigned to one ore more generators. Each asset generated will follow the assigned circuit in turn. More than one circuit can be assigned to one generator in which case the asset will choose randomly on an equal likelihood basis using a seed value to ensure repeatability.
Features
Fig.1 Circuits menu
- Circuit menu item
- Circuit select
- Edit circuit information - use this to change the circuits title
- Delete circuit
- Add circuit - create a new circuit
Guide
- Go to the circuit menu (Fig.1 - 1)
- Click the Add Circuit button (Fig.1 - 5)
- A new circuit will appear in the menu. You can rename it using the edit button (Fig.1 - 3)
- There are two options to create a circuit in the scene
- Hold down the ctrl button + left click, hold and drag to where you want to place the next circuit point.
- Hold ctrl button + left click to create the point you want to create then select open point, hold down ctrl and drag to the point you want to connect.
- To delete a circuit point, you first need to disconnect the point from the circuit. You do this by holding Alt + left click You can then select the point and press Del. Warning this will disconnect any points between the deleted point and will need to be reconnected to make the circuit.