This is a plugin node which takes one or two vertices (with the shapes matrix also) and uses that to ouput matrix, translate, and rotation attriutes which can be used for animation or other purposes. To install just place the python file in your plugin directory and load it like all other plugins. For basic use just select one or two vertices from the mesh and in the mel command line type and execute the command "vRivetCommand," which will create a locator positioned and oriented to the selected vertex(ices). You can also set it manually with createNode vRivet (or in Python createNode("vRivet"); and connect your shape's mesh and matrix attributes to inMesh and inMatrix, respectively. Use the rotationAxis attribute to specify which rotate axis points up, forward and tangent.


Update III: I'm currently building a rigging toolset in which this plugin will be included, so there won't be an update until I've released that...

Update II: The node no longer uses an up vector, but it still will generate an up and forward rotation if no second vertex index is supplied (upIndex == -1)

Update: There are now command flags which you can use to specify what attributes on the vrivet node should be set to:

-axis (-a) specify the rotation axis as a string: "XYZ","XZY","YZX",etc...
-reversed (-r) specify whether or not the rotation should be reversed as a boolean: True or False ( 0 or 1)

editing and querying flags yet to come....

Happy riveting!