Hello, and thanks for your time.

Below is a link of an animation that I would like to use as a basic idea for a animation I am trying to create in 3dsmax.

http://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/md_wat.htm

I can create animated molecule objects (red sphere with 2 white pegs) and have them move about in randomness using controllers on the postion and rotation.
I can create the “green dashed lines” (bonds) using renderable spline with two link Xform mods.

But what I would like to create in the animation is to some how automate this so that, when one of the objects approaches another object(s)in the correct orientation (as seen in the link animation), a green dashed line (renderable spline) appears in the correct position. If the two objects move apart, then the green dashed line would break....etc

This could be animated by animating the visibility, but this would become a tedious labour, and I am thinking there must be a better way to automate this behaviour in the viewport…

I am looking forward to any suggestions, tips or tutorials that I can explore.

thanks P.

XP Pro x64 SP2.
Xeon Quad Core x2 @ 2.33GHz, 4Gb RAM, 4Gb Swap, DX9.0c.
NVidia Quadro FX 4600 768MB
Forcewear 97.68

Outdated gear

start with something simple like create 2 sphere turn the autokey on and move the spheres and then move the time slider once you have your animation then turn the autokey off and press the play button

here is what i mean

3ds max 8. computer engineer. (Atmosphere FX, moddling houses, AEC, Video post)

windows xp sp3,
2 hard drive 80 and 60,
ram 120,
VGA sis mirage 3

	Attachment
13810_n55tsvQyaoUR90cJ9eM3.zip

ok, but where is the “green dashed line” (bond) that is supposed to occur?

XP Pro x64 SP2.
Xeon Quad Core x2 @ 2.33GHz, 4Gb RAM, 4Gb Swap, DX9.0c.
NVidia Quadro FX 4600 768MB
Forcewear 97.68

Outdated gear