Setting Up the Device Driver's Channels

 
 
 

You can set up each device driver's channel in its property editor. This includes activating a channel, setting an action with a target, and setting the channel's value (possibly including an offset and scale).

TipYou can save presets for device driver settings in its property editor as you can with anything else in Softimage — see Creating Presets of Property Settings [Scene Elements] for more information. This makes it easy to create a library of different channel setups for a particular device, then load them easily from the property editor.

To set up the channels

  1. Do one of the following to open a device driver's property editor:

    • Select a driver from the list in the Device Manager and click the Inspect Selection button. The driver's property editor appears.

      or

    • In the explorer, go to the Project level, expand the Data Device Manager tree. Each device that appears in the Device Manager window appears here. Click the icon for the device driver you want to edit so that its property editor appears.

      NoteThe devices that Softimage recognizes on startup will not appear in the explorer until you add them to the Device Manager.
  2. Activate or deactivate a channel by clicking in the channel's Active cell. A channel is not used if it's not active here.

  3. If you like, offset or scale the channel's value by entering a value in the Scale or Offset cell.

  4. Map a channel's action to a target by first clicking Action and selecting a type from the list (see the following table).

  5. Enter the parameter or command to which you want this action to be connected in the Target text box.

    The possible Actions and Target combinations are listed in the following tables:

    Action Type

    Target

    None

    Nothing

    Drive

    Parameter name

    Command

    Any Softimage command

    Special

    Command name in the following table.

    Target Command

    Does this ...

    ACTIVATE,driver_ID

    Activates the specified device driver.

    DEACTIVATE,driver_ID

    Deactivates the specified device driver.

    CURRENT

    Current selection.

    TIMELINE

    Drives the timeline.

    TIME_START

    Goes to the first frame.

    TIME_END

    Goes to the last frame.

    TIME_STEP_FORWARD

    Goes to the next frame.

    TIME_STEP_BACK

    Goes to the previous frame.

    TIME_STOP

    Stop the playback.

    TIME_PLAY_NORMAL

    Plays back from current frame (real-time playback).

    TIME_PLAY_FRAME

    Plays back from first frame (real-time playback).

    TIME_PLAY_SLIDE

    Plays from current frame (all frames).

    TIME_SPECIFY,frame

    Goes to the specified frame.

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