External Entity Locator

An External Entity Locator is a moving virtual cylinder object which can be taken into account by entities for avoidance when using a Navigation Behavior. This locator has a position (which is obtained for a tracked Maya DAG object) and a radius.
External Entity Locator example
 

Creation

  • Golaem Shelf:  
  • Golaem Menu: External Entity Locator
  • MEL command: glmExternalEntityLocatorCmd;
If a DAG Object is selected when the external entity locator is created, locator will automatically use this DAG object as tracked object. If several objects are selected, only the first selected object is used.
 
Connections between an external entity locator and its tracked object

Configuration

Attributes of an External Entity Locator
 
Tracked Object a Maya DAG object which gives the position of the entity to avoid, it is tracked in position. 
Radius Mode The radius of the External Entity. It can be computed with different methods:
  • Bounding Box Diagonal/2: half-size of the Maya DAG object bounding box diagonal
  • Greater Bounding Box Size/2: half-size of the greater size of the Maya DAG object bounding box;
  • Smaller Bounding Box Size/2: half-size of the smaller size of the Maya DAG object bounding box
  • Mean Bounding Box Size/2: half-size of the mean size of the Maya DAG object bounding box sides
  • Custom Radius.

Radius modes, from top to bottom, left to right: Bounding Box Diagonal/2, Greater Bounding Box Size/2, Smaller Bounding Box Size/2, Mean Bounding Box Size/2
Custom Radius if the custom radius is used, this field specifies the radius of the External Entity. This attribute can be keyframed.

Limitations

If the External Entity moves faster than Entities, or if Entities are really constrained, they may not manage to correctly avoid the External Entity: thus, collisions may occur. In that case, Entities will be stopped until the collision ends.