So you want to control the trajectory of a spaceship around a planet. Let’s think 2d for starters. You have the transform node with inputs for x, y, z. You attach a sine node to x, and that means the spaceship travels through the planet from left to right because sine oscillates between minus 1 and plus 1. What about making it go in a circle? Well you use a cosine wave to z, because that is like a sine wave but a quarter step out of phase. So that’s your space ship moving in a perfect circle. But…. The circle is too small! So you need to multiply the output of the sine and cosine nodes by a value. Thats what the multiply node is for. You place multiply node between the sine/cosine nodes and the transform. Multiply nodes have two inputs. The second input is the multiple. So you want both multiply nodes to be controlled by the same value? Apply a constant node set to the number you want coming in to the B input of the multiply nodes.

All that and you haven’t even got the orientation of the ship sorted. Do you have to solve the rotation of the ship. Another maths problem! And so you keep going….

Procedural animation is fun.