MASH 2.

2
Documentation

Contents
01 | Intro
Introduction to MASH.

17 | Multi-Curve 18 | Mute

Create animated curves based on MASH points.

02 | Installation
How to install MASH.

Controlling the strength of other nodes.

03 | Audio

Power animation with sound.

19 | Noise

Affect your objects with noise.

04 | Curve 06 | Delay

Animating objects along a curve.

20 | Offset

Offset or multiply values.

Inherit the animation of another object.

21 | Orient

Point your objects in their direction of travel.

07 | Distribute 08 | Echo

Distributing objects.

22 | Points

Display your point locations.

Duplicate your input array.

23 | Random 24 | Spring 25 | Trig

A random number generator.

09 | Falloff 10 | Flight 12 | ID

Affect your network using spherical volumes.

Add spring to your animation.

Flocking, Swarming and Schooling.

Use Sin/Cos/Tan to animate your objects.

Assigning objects to MASH points.

26 | Visibility 27 | Waiter

Affect the visibility of your objects.

13 | Influence 14 | Inherit 15 | Initial

Influence scale and rotation with guide objects.

MASHs backbone.

Inherit the animation of multiple transforms.

28 | Caching 29 | Utilities

Caching your network.

Referencing the current positions of your objects.

State

Bonus tools to help you along.

16 | Maths

Use Python expressions to manipulate your objects.

Intro
MASH is a suite of Maya nodes developed in-house at Mainframe aimed at enabling our artists to create versatile motion design style animations. It offers a selection of effector nodes which can be daisy chained together to generate a wide variety of customisable effects. Its fully controllable from both Mayas Attribute and Node Editors. MASH is tested for Maya 2012, 2013 (.5) and 2014 for OSX 10.7+ & Windows (64 bit). Check out mash.marquee.by or our Vimeo channel for example videos and tutorials.

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Installation
Note: Note: If you have MASH 1.x installed, please remove it. Simply move/ delete all of the .py files from your plug-ins folder and delete the shelf as this no longer works with MASH 2.1. If youre upgrading from MASH 2.0 then just overwrite any existing .bundle or .mll and restart Maya. To install, copy the .bundle or .mll plug-in you need into your Maya plug-ins folder: Mac: /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/plug-ins PC: Documents\maya\plug-ins Then copy all the icons to your Maya icons folder: Mac: /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/icons PC: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya20xx\icons If a folder doesnt exist, youll have to create it. PC Users, copy the libfftw3f-3.dll into your Maya bin directory: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\ Maya20xx\bin Loading: Once installed, open Maya and go to the Window > Settings/ Preferences > Plug-in Manager. Find MASH in the list, and check both auto-load and load. There will now be a new MASH menu under the Create menu. Registering: Once you have installed MASH, you need to register it to disable the demo mode. Go to the Create Menu > MASH > Register/Unregister dialogue and enter your details. Once done, we recommend you restart Maya, and youre good to go!
PAGE | 02 MASH 2.2 Documentation
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Audio
Power animation with an audio file. Audio supports uncompressed WAV and AIFF files. The sample rate is automatically detected. Mode: Spectrum: EQ frequencies will be used to drive the animation. Average: The average volume will be used rather then individual frequencies. Output Mode: Normal: Results will be added to the incoming channel. Multiply: Results will multiply the incoming values. Filename: The audio file. Amplitude: Amplifier for the effect. Frequency Graph: Control which frequencies are used to get results. Enable XYZ: Control which axis are driven by the audio file. Thresholds: Set minimum and maximum amplifier values. Time Offset: Offset the sound from the beginning of the timeline. Time Step Average: Average volumes will be passed down the line, on by default. Samples: How many times the file is sampled per second. Usually best left at 1024. Max Bands: The maximum number of frequencies that will be processed.
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Curve
Animate objects along a curve: Time Step: This controls how far apart the objects are. Animation (slide): Use this to control the speed at which the objects travel along the curve. This is a fraction of the curve length. Time Step Variation: Adds/ removes a random amount to the time step on a per object basis. Velocity Random: Randomises the velocity of each point. Velocity Noise: The velocity of each point changes over time. Calculate Rotation: Objects will face down the curve when this is on. Pay attention to the up vector, and the direction of your original instances (they should be pointing down the X axis of the scene). Stop At Curve End: With this on, objects will not be sent back to the beginning of the curve once they reach the end, and will instead stop. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. Simple Mode: U Value: The position of the objects on the curve. Simple Strength: The strength of the simple mode (1 is on).

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Input Curves: The curves the objects will travel along. You can add several at once. outAgePP: An attribute available through the Node Editor that you can use in combination with the Mute nodes inStrengthPP attribute. Age will be 0...1 depending on where the object is on the curve: 0 at the beginning, 1 at the end.

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Delay
Inherit the animation of an object, and offset it in time. Time Step: This controls the total time of the delay (in frames). Time Variance: An object by object randomiser for the time step. Time Offset: A backward offset for the time step. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. Self Delay: Uses the objects own position as a base for the delay, and as such, ignores the leader object. This mode can be slow with complex networks. Remember that time variance is set to 20 by default, and you might want it on 0 when using this mode. Leader Object: The object to follow. Connect leader: Connects the currently selected transform. Create Leader: Creates a null, and uses it as the leader.

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Distribute
Distribute objects, also useful for step effects: Arrangement: A menu to determine the type of distribution, drop-down options are: Normal: Linear distribution Radial: Distributes objects around the circumference of a circle, or in a spiral/ helix. Spherical: Places the objects randomly on the surface of an imaginary sphere. Auto-animates. Mesh: Places the objects on the vertices/ faces or randomly on a specified object. inPositionPP: A bridge to bring in scatter points or particle positions from SOuP or nParticles. Useful for goaling MASH controlled objects from one object to another. Grid: A 2D or 3D matrix of objects Settings: Several roll-downs with options for each distribution type, they are generally the same controls, just given names that are relevant to the current distribution type. Distribute Gap: Groups the objects into fewer distribution steps. Bias Ramp: An animatable graph to control the distribution of points. There are ramps for each axis. Create Falloff Object: Creates a volume falloff object. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time.

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Echo
Takes the entire input array and duplicates it: Echoes: The number of times to instance the downstream MASH network. Echo Offsets: Offset the echoes in the XY or Z axis. Echo Offset Variance: Random offsets. Echo Slide: Randomise the offsets values. Echo Time Slide: Randomise the echoing input array through time. Note: The time slide only effects the incoming array not animation on the Echo node itself. Random Seed: A seed value for the random values in the node. Echo Time Slide: Takes the inArray, and randomly offsets it in time between 0 frames and the number you enter here. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. Echo along curve: Have your echoes follow the path of a curve (beware the up-vector). Echo Rotation: Rotate the echoes. Echo Rotation Variation: Randomise the echo rotation. Echo Scale: Scale the echoes. Echo Scale Variation: Randomise the echo scale. inOffsetPP: An attribute available through the Node Editor for offsetting based on an outArray. You can use this attribute to stamp one MASH network onto another. See the video tutorial.
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Falloff
A node to control falloff volumes. Invert Falloff: Inverts the falloff area. Shape: Spherical or cubic falloff shapes are supported. Cubic is slightly slower then spherical. Mode: Normal: The effect of the falloff object will be temporary. Add: The effect of the falloff node will be permanent. Remove: Removes the permanent effect. Radius: Radius of the falloff volume in world units. Inner Zone: Areas in this zone will be at full strength, its measured as a ratio of the radius. Falloff Ramp: Customise the falloff curve.

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Flight
A simulation node that will give a very natural approximation of flocking/ schooling and swarming. The Flight node needs playback speed setting to play every frame as it is a simulation node. Your playback start and end frames should be set to whole numbers eg., 0 to 250, and not 0.04 to 249.96 for example. Objects will face down the Z-axis once youve added an orient node. Alignment Strength: How much the points want to travel in the same direction. Cohesion Strength: How much the points want to stay together. Separation Strength: How determined they are not to collide. Search Distance: How far to search for other points. Number of Companions: How many points to compare with when making the calculations. Field of Vision: The angle (in degrees) within which the object can see its companions. Alignment Zone: The size of the alignment area inside the search distance. Separation Zone: The size of the separation area inside the search distance. Minimum/ Maximum Speed: Control the speed of the points. Mass: Used to exaggerate some of the calculations. Mass Variance: A random variance on the mass. Steering Force: Lower values give agile darting movements while higher values give swooping movements and result in overshoot.

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Type of Gravitation: Given Location uses the float boxes andv GroupCentre uses the centre of the points. Inertia: A constant force applied to all the points. Avoidance Type: Various options to create a more natural flow to obstacle avoidance. Input Mesh: The points can be constrained to a mesh, helpful for insects and people. targetPP: A connection you can make in the node editor to make a PP array (such as one created by a Distribute node, or SOuP scatter node) an attractor point.

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ID
Easily assign different objects to your MASH points. Note: This should be added to the Instancer ID channel. ID Type: The type of ID distribution, the options are: Linear: Increments the ID of each object by 1. It loops if there arent enough objects. Random: Each object gets a random ID. Echo ID: Each Echo gets a different object. Cycle: IDs are incremented by 1 per frame. Fixed: Each ID is the same. Randomise Cycle Start: When in Cycle mode each starting ID is random. Stop At Cycle End: Each ID stops animating when it runs out of objects. Cycle Gap: Stagger cycling starting points (doesnt work when randomise is on). Oscillate: The ID will reverse once it gets to the end of the sequence.

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Influence
Influence scale and rotation with guide objects. Add Influence Locator: Add an extra influence locator to the scene. Two influence locators are created by default. Influence Power: This setting controls how quickly the influence locators effect falls off. Higher values make the falloff more pronounced.\ Use Radius: When on, the maximum extent of influence locators is controled by the radius setting below, when this is off the influence node will automatically fade between multiple influence locators. Influence Radius: The maximum extent of a locators influence. Enable Scale/ Rotation: Enable or disable the effect of the locators on this channel. Overwrite Scale/ Rotation: When enabled, the node will ignore any incoming values and overwrite them. Turn this off to preserve any incoming rotation or scale information.

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Inherit
Inherit the animation of multiple transforms. Distribution Style: Linear: Point 1 is assigned to input 1, point 2 to input 2 etc., etc. Random: All points are assigned randomly to the inputs. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. Force: Pushes the points away from the transform. Force Variation: A randomiser for the above control.

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Initial State
Remember the current positions of your objects. Note: Its always best to add this node first so that any initial transforms arent overwritten by other nodes. Note: If your objects have rotation or scale information, zero this out after adding the node, otherwise youll end up with double transforms. Enable Position/Rotation/Scale: Turns on this channel of the initial state node. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time.

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Maths
Use Python expressions to manipulate your objects. Use XYZ Expression: Check-boxes to enable or disable expressions. Note: The random and maths modules are imported automatically, Maya commands are assigned the namespace mc. MASH supplies you with several local variables: id = object number (the same as the Point ID) totalid = the total number of objects time = the frame number inx iny inz = the values of the objects before the Maths node. pi2 = 2 x pi step = normalised id (the id but between 0 and 1). angle = a helper variable for creating circles, see examples below. u & v = internal UV values, you might find them useful. Example formulae (not all are animated): sin((time+id)*0.1)*5 pow(max(2-step,0),5) tan(step*(time*0.02)) cos(inx*pi2+(time*0.1)) To create a rotating circle: sin(angle+(time*0.01))*10 (place in x) cos(angle+(time*0.01))*10 (place in y)
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Multi-Curve
Create animated curves based on MASH points. Curve Type: Join the Dots: Joins all the MASH points with a curve/curves. Tracer: Trace the paths of your points. Point to Point: The current position of your point is connected to the location of a helper object (or 0,0,0 if you dont connect one). Point to Point Location: Connect Point Object: Connects a selected translate for use as the point location. Create Point Object: Creates and connects a locator for use as your point location. Number of Curves: Creates and removes curves from the scene. Tracer Length: The length of your tracer curve in Frames. Note: When using Paint Effects on your Tracer curves, be aware that they will not appear until the curve has reached its maximum length (by default, frame 100). Paint Effects do not appear to support curves of dynamic length. Note: Point to Point curves have additional CVs created automatically (you can disable this in Extra Attributes). These extra CVs allow you to make the curves dynamic (nHair > Make Selected Curves Dynamic). nHair is only available in Maya 2013 or newer. See example file.

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Mute
Control the strength of other nodes. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. Noise Strength: Think of this as animated random strength. Reverse Mute Order: Useful for Step Strength, it will reverse the order in which the objects are effected. Be careful with this mode, it can produce unwanted results. Mute map: Use any 2D texture/ file/ animated file texture to mute your objects. Individual Axis Controls: Individual envelopes for each axis. Time Based Mute: Beat Ramp: Useful for automatically animating Mute values. Loop Frames: The number of frames before MASH starts reading the ramp again. Beat Ramp: The ramp that will be applied to the Beat Strength values. XYZ Strength: Sliders to control the strength of the mute effect. Stagger (frames): Each object will be offset along the ramp, see example project. Loop the ramp: The ramp will not loop when this is disabled. inStrengthPP powered ramp: Use the values coming in from this attribute to determine what part of the ramp is read. Useful in combination with the Curve node for age based effects. In addition, the lifespan attribute can be used to help this calculation along. See example files. Mute by String: Type in object numbers, separated by commas, or number ranges, separated by a hyphen to mute them. e.g. 3,4,5, 8-13 Filter On: These objects will remain on, no matter the other mute values. Filter Off: These objects will be fully muted, no matter the other mute values.
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Noise
Affect your objects with Perlin (Simplex) noise, seek noise or mosaic noise. Noise Type: Perlin Noise: The noise youre probably looking for. Seek Noise: This is a fully procedural random walk; the points will wander off from the centre of the screen in random directions. You can control how erratic the movement is with the new Seek Angle (FoV) setting. Its particularly useful for simulating insect movement in conjunction with the Flight node. Mosaic Noise: Points can only turn at right angles in the noise mode. There are random variance sliders to create a varied look, found under the Cubic Noise (misnamed) roll out. Amplitude: Strength of the noise. Frequency: The speed of the noise. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. Step: The time difference between the noise given to each object. Lower this value to make the objects look like theyre following each other over the noise. Octaves: The number of noise octaves, higher numbers will produce a more detailed noise. Random Seed: Seed value for the noise. Whole numbers: Only whole numbers will be returned. Absolute Noise: Noise values will always be positive.

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Offset
Offset or multiply values. Type of Offset: Normal: Takes the incoming array (if there is one) and adds to it. Multiply: Multiplies the results of the incoming array. Rotate All Points: This will rotate all the objects around a given point. It only makes sense to use this is the position channel. Overwrite: Values will be set to these regardless of the incoming array. This can be useful for diagnostics, and occasionally when using the Initial State node. Closest Point On Mesh: Sticks the points to a surface. Offsets (XYZ): The values used by the modes described above. Clamps (Normal mode only): Enable Clamps: Enables the clamps. Clamp Values: XYZ values for the low and high clamps. Centre of Rotation (Rotate mode only): Centre of Rotation: The point around which all the objects will rotate. Enable X, Y, Z: Under the Envelopes roll down, these checkboxes can be used to disable the use of certain axis.

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Orient
Point your objects in their direction of travel. Note: This object should be added to the Rotation channel. Note: Point your original objects down the X axis to make the up vector relevant. Solo: Limit which axis are rotated. Up Vector: Which direction is up for your objects. Smoothing: Smooths the rotation animation over 10 frames. Very useful with the Flight node. Target Mode: With this box enabled the MASH objects will point at whatever target you add to this node. Set Target: With an object translate selected, click this button to set it as the target. Create Target: MASH will create a locator and connect it to the node, as well as turn on Target Mode. It just saves you a few clicks. Tip: If you find the changes of direction too abrupt, add a Spring node to the rotation channel to dampen the rotation.

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Points
Display your point locations with OpenGL. Enable Points: Disable the node with this. Colour: The colour of the points in the viewport.

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Random
A random number generator: Minimum Number: The lowest random number that can be generated. Maximum Number: The highest random number that can be generated. Random Seed: A seed value for the random numbers. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. Whole Numbers: Only whole numbers will be returned. Uniform Random: The random X value will be used for Y and Z. Individual Axis Controls: Min and Max sliders for each axis. They are used when their value is not 0.

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Spring
Add spring to your animation: Note: The spring node requires animation to do anything, so add it after some animated MASH nodes. Note: Spring currently doesnt work correctly when scrubbing, this will be fixed. In the mean time, simply play through your animation to see it work. Spring Strength: An envelope for the overall spring effect. Damping: Dampens the spring, higher values will cause faster settling. Stiffness: The rigidity of the spring effect, lower values will cause a larger overlap. Damping Variation: Creates a random variation of the damping value on a per-object basis. Stiffness Variation: Creates a random variation of the stiffness value on a per-object basis.

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Trig
Use Sin/Cos/Tan to animate your objects: Amplitudes: The amount of units at the peak and trough of the animation curves. Frequencies: The speed of the animation. Strength: Fades the nodes effect all the objects at the same time. Random Strength: Smoothly fades the nodes effect on all the objects in a random order. Step Strength: Turns the nodes effect off one object at a time. X/Y/Z Function: The type of curve. Step: The offset along the curve given to each object, lower values mean all the objects have a very similar animation, larger values mean they will have a completely different value. Absolute Values: Generated values will all be positive. Whole Numbers: Only whole numbers will be returned.

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Visibility
Affect the visibility of your objects. Strength: The ratio of the objects turned off. By default, objects are turned off in order. String filters: Type in object numbers, separated by commas, or number ranges, separated by a hyphen to hide them. e.g. 3,4,5, 8-13 Filter On: These objects will remain on, no matter the other values. Filter Off: These objects will be invisible, no matter the other values. Reverse Order: Reverses the order in which objects are made invisible. Randomise: Randomises the order in which the objects are turned off. Random Seed: A random seed value for the above control.

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Waiter
The Waiter is the crux of MASH. Here you create nodes for the network and set the number of objects you want. Add node to: A menu where you can select which channel (position, rotation, scale, id, visibility) a MASH node will be added to when you click Add Node. Node Type: The type of node to be added. See the other pages to see more detail on how these work. Add Node: Adds a new node based on the settings youve chosen in the drop down menus. Number of objects: How many objects there are in your MASH network. Caching: See the next page. Note: Under Advanced there is a check-box Use Set Objects, you can use this to directly move transforms in your scene. 1. Set this option. 2. Drag some objects onto the Waiter in the Outliner (its a selection set). 3. Set the number of objects to the correct number. 4. Use MASH as normal. 5. BAKE your animation (edit > keys > bake simulation) before rendering.

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Caching
The Waiter now includes a Caching roll-down. This houses a button which activates the new Cache Creator as well as checkboxes for quickly enabling and disabling caches. The Cache Creator: Within this window you can create caches for each MASH channel. Caches are a single file per channel. Cache names are based on the name of the Waiter. Caches are saved in Mayas mcx format (the same as nCaches). Caches can be disconnected in the Cache Creator. The resulting Cache nodes can be re-timed and reversed etc., etc. Once a cache has been created, you can disable the MASH nodes in that channel as the Waiter will not be using their calculations.

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Utilities
These tools are found under Create > MASH > Utilities Create MASH Deformer: First select a mesh shape and then a Waiter node, then select this option. This adds a deformer to the selected MESH object that is driven by the MASH network. The deformer has some enveloping options and supports Falloff objects. Thaw Objects: Select a group of frozen objects and select this option. If you want to work with objects such as Illustrator shapes or text created by Maya, these shapes will have their transforms frozen, this means MASH wont know where they really are, when thats the case, run this script to give the objects their correct transform information. Create nParticles > MASH > Instancer: Creates a new MASH network with an nParticle network plugged into it, this means you can use all the MASH goodies to control the particle system while inheriting, for example, the dynamics of the particle system. Set up nParticles with an initial state from MASH: Select a Waiter, then choose this option. This will create a new nParticle system with a particle at the position of each MASH point.

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