K1TesseraEna wrote:
Like the script, although, it hard to grasp the nuances.
straight paths yeild exactly what's expected
[ Image ]
adding subtle curve, and things go berserk
[ Image ] That's part of the fun
First, when you ask for N steps, the script determines N points along the two paths (the "stretch factor" determines how these points are spread). Then it creates a Bézier spline (blue curve) between the two corresponding points on the paths (solid green lines) that become the anchors of the curve.
Attachment:
PathLadder.png [ 9.35 KiB | Viewed 2265 times ]
The fun begins with the tangent handles. The "incidence" is the angle (in red) between the perpendicular to the path at the control point (dotted green line) and the line from the control point to the tangent handle (in yellow). The "bend factor" is the length of that yellow line, expressed as a percentage of the distance between the two control points. The longer the line, the longer the curve remains close to the incidence angle, so that leads to more bendy ladder steps. Likewise, if 0, there is no tangent handle, so if you use zero on both sides, you get straight lines. The two "sides" selectors control which tangent handle is used. When "explicit" the script uses the designated sides. When "shortest" it computes the handles on both sides of the each path, then computes the four distances for the four possible pair of handles (one form each path) and keeps the pair of handles that has the shortest distance (this normally leads to the shortest spline).