ICE strands to curves

[rasskass]

Hi,
Is it possible to convert or freeze ICE strands to softimage curves?

[fabricio.chamon]

here you go.
Select pointcloud and run. (javascript)

change function params to use pointpositions as curve control points, and to merge (or not) all curves into one curvelist.

[theKos]

This is cool is there anyway to keep the animation?

[fabricio.chamon]

ok, I've made a new version that supports strand animation too.
select a point cloud > create > curve > strandsToCurves_single (or merged)

hope it helps.

[theKos]

Awesome! This is super useful.

[theKos]

It seems if you emit strands from a weight map or delete strands on emit the curves not longer bind to the strands correctly. They get created correctly but the animation doesn't work. Might be some sort of count problem. Do you have a work around? or is it just a limitation. Thanks again for the script.

[fabricio.chamon]

well yes, this is a limitation.
It's not a live operator, but it rather transfers animation of points and strand positions to the curves.
the curves are a snapshot of the strands at the moment you run the command.
This means that the script is most useful on pointclouds with constant number of particles over time. So if your point count changes, the creation/deletion of new strands will not be propagated to the curves.

[fabricio.chamon]

update: this update will fix a bug where weightmap filtered particle emissions resulted in incorrect motion transfer of the strands to the generated curves. (Uninstall the old plugin then install the new version)

[Maximus]

hm i'm looking for a way to do the opposite, create a strand from a curve, i'm ice noob! is there something around?

[Mathaeus]

hm i'm looking for a way to do the opposite, create a strand from a curve, i'm ice noob! is there something around?

what you exactly want to do... I have about 100+ nodes of this type. Also no big deal if you want to cook something.

[Maximus]

well hm one of the cool things i saw so far and tryin to study are the "Create copies from polygon mesh" new ICE topo node.
What i'm trying to do is have ICE modeling crete copy from a custom mesh, for example a diamond.
I've modeled the diamond and i've create an empty mesh with create copies from poly mesh and the diamond mesh plug into this node.

so far so good, now the Create copies from poly mesh node has an input called "Point cloud name" under the point cloud template, this is used to drive the copies into the position of the points into the pointcloud you plug here.

What i want to do is have a full control of copies into a precise part of a geometry, for example i have a bottle and i want to put the copies into a precise spot of the geometry for example the neck of the bottle, i want the diamonds to sit there, and i was thinking to use curves to draw the exact spot where i want the diamonds to be placed, and then convert curves to strands, and use the pointcloud of the strands for the point cloud template into the copy mesh topology compound.

I hope i explained myself

What i want to have is a procedural fully customizable system where i can copy 1 mesh into another to create an effect like "Object paint" in 3ds max, or paint FX in maya, except i want to control where those copies will sit with a curve, or whatever gives me full control of it (for example having even spaces between copies).

[Mathaeus]

Theoretically, the one at bottom at page should do the trick. I have no idea how "Create copies from polygon mesh" exactly works in 2012 - I'm guessing it requires a 'full' point cloud, perhaps not strands. Strands are some kind of particle 'sub-object' (array per point).

Compound won't set orientation, but not big deal to add this.

'Object paint'... that's another story.