Sub-Mesh
Access sub-meshes within Shapes
Intro
Meshes in Cavalry can contain a hierarchy of other Shapes within them. We refer to these meshes as ‘Sub-Meshes’. This hierarchy is a tree structure, much like the Scene Window, only it exists inside a Shape.
For example, Text consists of Lines, Words and Characters, a Duplicator is built of many Input Shapes and SVGs can have any number of layers. The Sub-Mesh Behaviour provides a way to access and affect these individual meshes by specifying the level(s) within a hierarchy.
UI
Position - set the X and Y position. 0,0 is in the centre of your comp.
Rotation - set the rotation (in degrees).
Scale - set the X and Y scale values.
Opacity - set the opacity.
Visibility - affect the sub-shape's visibility on a per shape basis.
Time Offset - set the animation curve for duplicates on a per shape basis. Tip - connect a Stagger node
Center Pivot - centre the pivot to each sub-mesh's bounding box.
Deformers - a list of connected Deformers.
Filters - a list of connected Filters.
Level Mode - choose which level(s) of a sub-mesh to affect.
Custom... - manually set a Custom Level Range.
Text (Lines) - used with a Text Shape, this will affect each line.
Text (Words) - used with a Text Shape, this will affect each word.
Text (Characters) - used with a Text Shape, this will affect each character.
All - affects all sub-meshes, regardless of level.
The Level Mode provides several settings designed to make working with Text easier. For example, the Text (Words) mode sets internal Custom Level Range values of 2, 2
. While these settings will affect any words in a Text Shape, the same settings can also be valid for an SVG Shape.
Custom Level Range - set the level within the Sub-Mesh's hierarchy to affect. This can also be used to set a range of levels. For example, setting a range of 1, 2
might be used to override the color of an SVG for all the shapes on levels 1 and 2 but not on level 3.
As the Level value increases the Sub-Mesh travels deeper into the Shape's hierarchy.
Flatten Mesh at Level - all sub-meshes below this level will be merged and brought up to this one.
Fill and Stroke
Sub-Mesh also has Fill and Stroke tabs. They are identical to those found on Shapes apart from two exceptions.
Replace Fill/Stroke - when checked the Sub-Mesh will overwrite any materials on the shapes it is connected to with the Color and/or Shaders set in this tab.
Replacement Mode - by default, all materials will be replaced but, by using this option, you can target certain conditions:
Replace All - Sub-Mesh will replace the Fill/Stroke of all sub-meshes.
Replace Missing - Sub-Mesh will only replace the Fill/Stroke of any sub-meshes that do not have Fill/Stroke enabled.
Replace Existing - Sub-Mesh will only replace the Fill/Stroke of any sub-meshes that do have Fill/Stroke enabled.
Fill/Stroke Overrides - see Color Material Overrride and Alpha Material Override.
Levels for Text are as follows:
Line.
Word.
Character.
Example usage:
Create a Text Shape.
Create a Sub-Mesh node.
Connect subMesh.id > textShape.deformers
Set Position Y on the Sub-Mesh to 30
Right click on the Falloff attribute and select 'Add Falloff'.
When you animate the Falloff through the text each letter will move up 30px.
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