Shape extrusion scaling

[tairoark]

Second question:
I would like to use CP metadata in the Spline Path Input to control many things (change material used, etc...) but I'm not sure how?
Do I need to have many different Spline Path Input, each with their one start and end CP range to render sub-lengths of the same reference spline path? Is this very efficient?

There are two solutions I see:

The heavy one, which I do not recommend, which is having an input path module that reads the meta data, and stores the relevant data in the path data (class name: CGPath) that is transmitted to the next module, and then having a custom shape extrusion module that will read that data and creates different volumes with different materials accordingly.

The light one, that I do recommend, which is to have a script that reads the meta data of the spline, and setup for each let's call it material section, to setup a shape extrusion graph, as you said using the start/end CP, or the Range parameter in the Shape Extrusion module, to make a separate shape extrusion for each material

I hope this helped
Please let me know if you need further explanation.
If and when you feel like it, please leave a review for the asset, that helps a lot.
Have a nice day

OK. I will only consider the "Light" solution.

But I am not sure exactly the approach you are suggesting?
Are you suggesting:
A) I make separate CG for each range of the spline that has different attributes, or
B) Make one CG but have non-connected graphs within this CG that generate unique extrusions per range?

It seems like A) would be easier as I wouldn't have to construct the graph on the fly and the Input are explicit to set the Shape on.
Can "Templates" be used for this? (I haven't looked into them yet)

B) Might have to all be done with programmatic creation of the whole sub-graph in code like you do in the InfiniteTrack example? Or can Template also be use to load each sub-graph for processing a range with unique attributes?

So for efficiency sake, which is better: A) many CG's or B) many sub-graphs within one CG?




 
To clarify further, I'm trying to do two different things which may confuse my explanation:
1) Change 'shapes' at CPs
2) Change 'materials' at CPs

These may require different techniques to be done efficiently?

From our discussions on the other thread, changing 'shapes' can be done in a single CG by programing the Curve of the Variable Mixed Shapes (as long as Optimize of Shape Extrusion is off AND the first CP of all the shapes are aligned (thank you for this fix)). This is straight forward for me to do I think. No separate CG or sub-graphs with different ranges needed.

It would be nice to do the same with materials. In your reply on the other thread you also said, "The Input Spline Shape module for uses the Meta CG Options component to compute the U coordinate of the shape's points"  The Input Spline Shape can change the materials along its spline (the railroad track example) with Meta CG Options.  Can an Input Spline Path be made to do the same? This is solution that would be simple without having to resort to multiple CG's or sub-graphs.


Thanks for your quick relies and help in this matter so we can finalize the architecture using Curvy.

Any idea what technique the Audi Quattro Coaster used?