How to drive text based off of a value

Question

How can I drive the content of a text object by a value box such as the samples slider?

I want to be able to change the value here:

And have the value show up automatically on this text object, without any type of manual refresh:

Answer 1

i have created a blend example to show how to do this. http://www.pasteall.org/blend/36360

Ill warn you that this is big hack. it will most likley not work if you submit this job to an external renderfarm, deppending on the renderfarm settings.

What we want to do is create a driver on a transform property of an unrelated empty. Then write a custom Python Driver that updates the Text.body string with the Scene.cycles.samples value.

1. create an empty
2. create a driver on the x transform (not too important which axis)
3. run script in text editor.
4. set up driver

Code:

import bpy

def update_driver():
        bpy.data.objects['Text'].data.body = "%i samples" %bpy.context.scene.cycles.samples
        return 0

bpy.app.driver_namespace["update_driver"] = update_driver

Run this code when you open the file. now our custom pydriver will be available in the expression field of the driver. If you have already entered the expression before running the script, you will need to click in the expression field, and press enter to update.

It is important to have this fake_driver variable connected to a transform property of an object. This 'hack' forces the driver to update on each frame. In the driver we now enter update_driver() for the expression.

Depending on your settings, you may need to open the User preferences and turn on 'auto run python scripts' to allow our python driver to work.

Answer 2

I will show how you can achieve such result with Animation Nodes Add-on:

Unfortunately AN doesn't work with Drivers directly (at the moment, actual version 1.6.0), but can read/write attributes of other objects. That's why this solution could seems strange on first look.

1. Choose your text object and create new Object Custom Property, name this "Samples" (or any you wish). Ensure that you set default number with no decimals.
2. Then add driver for this Property. Choose "Manually Create Later (Single)".

3. Open F-Curve panel in Driver mode, find your driver and setup it like on the screenshot below:

   

4. Now create new Animation Nodes NodeTree:

   

You even can just create scripted Subprogram:

It will be more clearly and faster.

Answer 3

You can do something like this in Geometry Nodes, and apply this to some random object like a cube primitive (input geometry isn't used anyway). In my example, my integer value is driven by some other value.

Answer 4

consider the python script pseudo excerpt

def somefunctionName():
    object.data.body = textcreated

    //use one only ... good to know about the pair
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(somefunctionname)

    //bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(somefunctionname)
    //to have a function called on every frame render

You may also have to remove any previously append-ed function or reload Blender.
The appends can accumulate if you are furiously updating your python

You can search at this site for many examples.