Kinetic Wall Toolkit

A fast Maya tool to create kinetic walls and kinetic wall animations.

Create custom kinetic walls and kinetic wall animations within Maya in a matter of minutes. Among the many tools available, the Kinetic Wall allows you to use custom shapes, animation presets and quick selections to speed up the workflow.

Features

Create and adjust kinetic walls with different primitive objects.
Replace elements with custom objects while retaining animation.
Animation presets and animation offset tools with different directions.
Select patterns and create custom selections.

Gallery

Add project imagery to public/images/ and reference from this page when ready.

Tutorial

Documentation

General Notes

The Kinetic Wall Creator relies on a set of named locators and elements (mesh transform nodes) to perform kinetic wall features located in the creation, geometry, animation and selection tabs. The selection sets are the only features that do not rely on these sets and can be used independently from the kinetic wall.

The kinetic wall is based on individual elements parented to a locator; these are named by row (R) and column (C) to identify position in the wall. Do not change their names since the tools rely heavily on naming convention to perform operations.

Elements are locked as references by default for ease of selection. Elements can be selected in the selection tools (choose “Select Elements” in the drop down menu) or unlocked/locked in the geometry tab.

The animation tools apply animation keys to locators only, thus allowing elements to keep transforms intact from the animation for an extra level of customization (manually set by the user).

Geometry tools apply to elements only, thus allowing locators to stay intact to preserve animation.

Selection tools are presented in a separate window to be used along with the geometry and animation tools. Selection tools apply to both locators and elements.

Creation Tools

Create by Wall/Element Dimensions — Creates a Kinetic_Wall_GRP with kinetic wall attributes used for operations. Only one Kinetic_Wall_GRP is supported at a time in the scene. Input the number of elements in length/height and set element size dimensions.

Adjust by Wall/Element Dimensions — Scales element dimensions and positions them to fit the new dimensions of an existing wall.

Load Selected Kinetic_Wall_GRP — Loads specific kinetic wall attributes to continue working on saved files (previous history will not be loaded).

Element Type — Cube, triangle (3-sided cylinder), cylinder, pyramid, and sphere primitives.

Elements in Length/Height — Number of elements to create; total length/height multiplies with element length/height.

Element Length/Height/Depth — Dimensions for individual elements.

Element Offset — Offset within element dimension to create gaps between elements (e.g. offset 0.1 on a 1×1×1 cube yields ~0.8×0.8×0.8 cubes with 0.2 gap).

Geometry Tools

Application Type — Apply to all elements in the kinetic wall (“Apply to All”) or current selection (“Apply to Selection”). Linked with Animation Application Type.

Transform Options — Keep transforms from previous elements or reset when using Replace Elements.

Replacement Element — Type the transform node of the mesh to use as replacement (not the mesh shape node).

Assign Selected as Replacement — Fills the replacement field from selection (single mesh transform).

Replace Element — Duplicates replacement, deletes history, resets transforms; original is hidden under KW_Original_Replacement_GRP.

Lock/Unlock Elements — Default display override is reference for easier locator selection.

Face Projection — For kinetic wall primitive cubes: UV map per face in position with Arnold materials (falls back to Maya material if mtoa missing). Useful to project image/video and transitions.

Animation Tools

Application Type — Same pattern as geometry: all locators/elements or selection-based; linked with Geometry Application Type.

Apply Animation Preset — Two main presets × three selection types (Checker/Column/Row) × two rotation axes (Y and Z) = 12 presets. Resets keyframes in the specified time range (Time Start/End).

Time Start/End — Preset/offset window; when offsetting, frames update to include all keyframes from the offset result.

Offset Amount — Keyframe offset amount.

Offsets — Six directions; with “apply to selection,” offset center options define the center of the selection.

Reset Animation — Deletes animation on the kinetic wall.

Add Current to History — Captures current transforms and keys for undo-style history when changing animation manually.

Undo/Redo — History records transforms and keys while using animation tools; use “Add current to history” for manual changes outside the tools.

Selection Tools

Selection Type — Select locators or elements (respects drawing overrides).

Selections — “Select All” and “Select Inverse,” plus eight pattern options (add with Shift, subtract with Ctrl).

Selection Sets — Ten default sets, up to 20 total; right-click to clear a set.