This compound wires into the factory Bend Op and uses the angle value to drive the radius in such a way that the deformation always goes along the whole length of the object- similar to 3DSMax's bend deformer. Demonstrated here (archive).

Related plugin: »agBend« by Ángel Pavón

local backup: pb_BendWithRadius.xsicompound

This is a retiming compound posted by softimage.ru forum (archive) user /voo-doo/ that does an fcurve controlled retiming of particle positions, rotations and scale values.

Basic usage instructions as posted by the author: Create a basic emission on a grid Open Cache manager » Write Ice cache to the file Hide (or delete) original pointcloud Create a new empty pointcloud Assign Ice Tree (Simulated) Drop and connect a new Retime compound into Ice Tree Choose your Ice cache play with f-curve :)

Related plugins: »Cache Retime 1.2« by Rob Chapman

local backup: ICE_cache_Retimer_v1.51.xsicompound

A scattering plugin from Julien Carmagnac, author of »Instance On Curve«. SiScatter offers a high level of control over the scatter placement:

This scatter tool distributes particles based on the »emTool _ Equal Distribution on Surface« Compound from Eric Mootz (thank you Eric !). I tweak this compound to work together with »Delete Particles Near to Boundaries Edges«, »remove closest geometry« and »remove inside filter« compounds.

This tool build an ICE Tree and create a custom property under the point cloud object to tweak all ICE parameters. So you can edit entirely your scattering without open your ICE Tree. List of available modifiers: color by gradient color by shape id color by texture map filter by boundary edge filter by closest geo filter by fractal filter by random [..]

Continue reading in the si-community thread. Video demo here.

local backup: siScatter.xsiaddon

Updated April 2014 with a fix by Hans Adrian for Softimage 2014+. Strand Tree is a set of ICE compound nodes that allow the creation of plants and trees. See the author site / the si-community discussion for documentation, example scenes and videos.

Emitters: Emit Branches, Emit Leaves Grow Control: Even distribution grow, Random distribution grow Modifiers: Modify Branch Color by Iteration, Modify Branch Width by Iteration, Modify Particle Size by Iteration, Modify Value by Iteration, Modify Value by Normalized Strand Segment Debug: Debug Iteration Strand Effects: Deform Tree by Curve, Surface Grow Rendering: Tree Visibility Options, Use Geometry Branches Presets: Basic Tree, Pine Tree

Hans' interesting explanation for the Softimage 2014 fix: [..] I moved the »set data« node to outside of »Add point« node on creation. This is because whenever there is a »Add point« node, the custom attribute stored in points may be reset. This was the case with »self.__strandTree_NumBranchesPerIteration«, which was reset to 0. It caused division by 0 in »Even Distribution Grow« node and thus the whole compound does not work. To work around this, we need to set the custom attributes in per Object context, instead, so that those attributes will not reset when there is another »Add point« node.

Available: Softimage ICE Procedural Tree Generator, ICE Procedural Tree - Surface Grow and Tree simulation - wip.

local backup: StrandTree.xsiaddon (fixed version)

An ICE compound that makes a crowd follow a path defined by curves on either side.

Usage instructions as posted on the mailing list: Create a new Crowd Scene Create two curves which will bound the crowd Put »Initialize Move Within Curves« compound in »Emit_and_Initialize« tree of the crowd — see attached »Emit and Initialize.PNG« Put »Move in between two curves« compound as Goal of the crowd in »Behavior« tree; use the two curves as input to the compound, with the left curve as Curve_Name_1 and right curve as Curve_Name_2 — see Behavior.PNG This compound works with and without terrain.

Additional material: A demo on youtube.

local backup: Initialize Move Within Curves.xsicompound Move in between two curves.xsicompound

An ICE compound for CrowdFX that makes groups avoid each other.

Usage instructions as posted on the mailing list: Create a new crowd scene with different social group ID Go to »Behavior« tree of Crowd Simulation Tree Replace »Set Velocity Using Collision Avoidance« with the attached compound »Set Velocity Using Group Collision Avoidance« (See Attached Group Behaviour.PNG) Tune »Far Interaction Limit« (found at »Emit_And_Initialize« tree > »Initialize Collision Avoidance«) for better result. Using 70 as the value seems to give overall best result for most cases.

Additional material: A demo on youtube.

local backup: Set Velocity Using Group Collision Avoidance.xsicompound

Disclaimer: This is from the resourcedump thread on si-community.com so »some restrictions may apply« (but usually don't)

He shoots he scores. this one is for Mr. Spare. a pure ICE non robust solution for the eternal problem of Rigid bodies colliding on cloth with interaction and simulation therein. only ICE, Verlet and Vorlex were used in the making of this scene which can be found here. [..]

local backup: Deformation_Verlet_Cloth_net_vorlex_ball_rc.scn

I needed a logo that looked welded together, so created a very simple setup in Softimage with ICE to automatically build the welding. The job didn't require any animation, but this test shows what's possible. I was surprised how easy this was with ICE, very simple indeed. [..]

Video demos: part 1, part 2.

local backup: welding-with-ice-2013.scn

This is a Legolize compound I created for some commercials I worked on. [..] Continue reading on the author page.

Video demo here.

local backup: gt_Legolize.xsicompoundp

This is a simple compound I created some time ago. Basically, it can modify an object weightmap using another object as influence. I found it useful in many productions. [..]

Video demo here.

local backup: Set Weightmap by Volume.xsicompoundp

A set of ICE nodes for some array operations that are not possible to recreate using factory nodes. Examples are: grouped sums, cumulative sums and operations on 'fake' 2D arrays (=linearized to a normal array).

Includes (from the si-community thread): Get Grouped Sums Array - groups values from an input array in a specified pattern and outputs the group sums as a new array. It can also do cumulative sums. If you're not working in a subcomponent context, you can also try this approach using GenerateSampleSet. Get Grouped Products Array - Same for products of array entries... uses cross product for vectors - Get Cumulative Sums Array - This one is a convenience node that does what is shown in example #4. It constructs the group sizes array based on the input array and output the cumulative sums array [A1, A1+A2, A1+A2+A3, A1+A2+....] - Get Repetition Array - This is a simple compound that creates repetitions of an array, number of repetitions is configurable of course. It is used to prepare a normal array for an operation with a 'fake' 2D array.

See the si-community thread for a few examples. A more complicated example is interpolating strands by nearby guide strands. Problem here: 'Get Closest Points' returns an array of the closest points and a 'Get StrandPositions' on this would require native 2D array support which does not exist. Workaround possible with these nodes: Build a global GuideStrandPositions array by concatenating the Guides' StrandPositions and store each guide's offset into this array as an attribute on the guide. The example scene demonstrates how to use this plugin to calculate the interpolated strands from this array.

local backup: ICEArrayNodes.xsiaddon CurvesAsGuides_Example_2014SP1.scn

The Open Source aaOcean Suite is a collection of Softimage ICE nodes and mental ray shaders that implement Jerry Tessendorf's paper on simulating ocean waves, which is currently the most widely used method for open water ocean surface modeling in the industry.

This particular implementation presents itself as a 3D deforming grid inside Softimage, which then becomes the source of vector displacement map sequences that are sent to Mental Ray for final rendering. One of the benefits of using this approach is that it opens up the possibility of making other 3D objects inside Softimage react with the ocean grid via ICE. Another benefit is the speed that it brings in setting up your ocean right inside Softimage on a low resolution ocean grid to set basic parameters like wave height and speed, rather than rendering a sequence of images in Mental Ray. Works nicely in conjunction with Werner Ziemerink's Wave Curl.

local backup: aaocean.zip

This is a Softimage ICE integration of the OpenVDB suite, Dreamworks Animation's volumetrics toolset which has been built around a new data structure for efficient storage and manipulation of big volumes. See openvdb_dreamworks.pdf for slides of an OpenVDB feature presentation.

Oleg Bliznuk, author of Exocortex's Implosia FX and Explosia FX (archive) has created this ICE adapter. His fluid simulator »Explosia FX« (free as a noncommercial version) can be used to create VDB files. OpenVDB ICE covers the essential features of the OpenVDB suite:

Mental Ray/Arnold shaders included: VDBGridReaderScalar VDBGridReaderVec3 VDBGridReaderInt VDBVolumeShaderSimple VDBBlackbody

Compounds included: Voxelize Geometry Voxelize Particles Get VDB Grid Set VDB Grid File Grid IO Add Noise Fogvolume Filter LevelSet Boolean Operations LevelSet Morphology VolumeFog Boolean Operations Advection Get Value at Coordinate Set Value at Coordinate Grid To Mesh Mesh To Grid Get Grid Data Particles To Grid Grid IO Fill Box Grid Change Grid Class Noise Advect Level Set Morphological Filters Rebuild LevelSet Resample Grid Transform Platonic Create Grid CSG Deep Copy Grid Morpher Polygonize Grid Solidify Level Set Create Velocity Field Display Grid Info Platonic Sphere Resize Container to Active Volume Visualize Grid Slice Visualize Scalar Grid Visualize Scalar Grid Slice Visualize Vector Grid Visualize Vector Grid Slice

For feedback and questions, visit the si-community thread. There's also some info there on how to interoperate with emFluid. Here is a demo video (archive) by the author and another video (archive) from the thread, created by Rob Chapman using only OpenVDB ICE nodes and rendered using the included openVDB arnold shaders. Requirements: Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable Package (x64)

local backup: OpenVDB_to_Softimage_v0.8.rar

Video demonstration. [..] Recently as I fiddled around I came across an interesting point about these kinds of distributions that caught my attention: they are a very efficient way to pack particles evenly on a surface. This is an important point to an effects artist, because not only is a large part of this job mimicking nature, but distributing points efficiently on surfaces lets us maximize the number of non-overlapping particles we emit.

So, I built some compounds, first to calculate phi (or simply return it as a stored constant, depending on the accuracy needed.) Another to convert phi into angles in degrees and radians (the "golden angle"), and finally I took these and made an emitter. Hooray, it indeed did allow me to emit a sphere of particles packed efficiently, and even better since I didn't have to use a "generate sample set" it allows millions of particles to be emitted much faster than simply emitting particles from spherical geometry, and without any resolution-dependence on the LOD of a polygonal sphere. And this "phi" distribution has a nice, natural look.

Related: Cesar Saez's »Fibonacci Golden Ratio compound« (moved below)

local backup: Emit From Phi Distribution.1.1.xsicompound Phi Distribution on Sphere.xsicompound

This compound generates points arranged on a flower petal like structure based on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. This sequence is a common property in biological growth and features derived from it (like the golden ratio) often seem to have a pleasing effect on the human eye.

Demonstration video of an old simulated version is available here (the new version available in the local backup doesn't require simulation)

local backup: Fibonacci Golden Number.xsicompound

From Julian's blog: Often you need to 'weight' the items of an array so that you can achieve a certain ratio e.g for a particle cloud 25% red, 25% blue and 50% green. The archive below contains a couple of sample scenes that show one specific technique (borrowed from Greg Turk's Graphics Gems algorithm for weighting triangles by area) for weighting an array and a couple of compounds kindly made by Dan Yargici making it easy to set up the initial weighted array and then pull data from it. The weighting doesn't have to be normalised - any ratios will work. Download the compounds and scenes here (archive).

local backup: Build Weighted Value Array.xsicompound Build Weighted Value Array.xsicompound weighted_array_sample_a.scn weighted_array_sample_b.scn (demo scenes)

From Julian's blog: A few months back Graham Fuller posted a great tip about how to retrieve the clones of a given point on the xsi mailing list. In this post Gustavo asks how to enumerate the individual clones so you can handle them separately. This scene (archive) shows three methods - a couple of them use variants of Graham's method whilst one uses a simple loop. They're useful techniques for creating hierarchies of particles where numerous clones can act as 'children' of a master particle.

local backup: clone with index.scn

Hello again Winter is coming! so be prepared and create Ski Lifts!!! This Compound doesn't need simulation. although the cabins are moving, it's in an unsimulated IceTree. No black magic involved, or at least not too much ;) Just create a Curve on your Terrain and Connect Instances if needed. [..] reports are very welcome.

Requirement: »mt_strandfitting« by Helge Mathee (included in »mt_strandNodes« directly below).

local backup: skilift6a.scn

A blast from the past from Helge's MindThink days - this one was 'hidden' inside the ICE_tutorials project (directly below) and seems to be the predecessor/'light' version of Melena.
mt_StrandNodes is a collection of strand manipulating compounds including a few compiled ones. From this mailing list post: It is an addon for simulating strands and much, much more. Basically it contains this: 1. a new custom icenode called "mt_strandFitting" which allows to reproject / refit a strand onto another one. You can use it for all sorts of things, such as refitting a curve or simply reprojecting a strand onto itself while maintaining length. — 2. a new geometry generator to create a mesh out of strands (cool!) with this you can create procedural geometry, such as a woven basket for example. — 3. a couple of compounds for creating strand effects. creating curling strands (strands curling around other strands), using strands as guides for other strands etc etc.. — 4. a project with sample scenes how to use this stuff...

The collection contains: Add Forces for Strands Add Guide from Spline Blend Stand Groom Create Curl Strands Create GuideHair Strands Create Strands from Curvelist Create Stroke Particle Curve Flow Force Directional Force Fill Interpolated Array FlowLines Force Get Array Ratio Get Position on Strand Get Regular Curve Locations Get Single Particle Attribute Get Strand Length Init Strand Simulation Init Strands Keep Every Nth Strand Modulate Strands by Null Move Strand with Geo Original Shape Force Prepare Strands For Extrusion Project Strands To Surface Push Strands Outside Geometry Random Scalar Value Array Random Value Along Strand Random Values Resample Strands Set Empty Strand Simulate Hair Simulate Strands With Constant Length Strand FCurve Strand Null Force Strand Stiffness Force Strand Surface Force Strand Turbulence Force Style Strands By Guides Turbulence Force

And some C++ compiled nodes and commands: HairSolver node strandFitting node hair2curves ice_strandExtrude strands2hair ice_strandExtrude.

local backup: mt_strandNodes.zip (doesn't include mentioned demo scenes - those are inside the ICE tutorials project directly below)

A collection of ICE Demo scenes created by Helge Mathee for the 2009 Stuttgart FMX conference. It includes the sample scenes for mt_strandNodes. Scenes available are: Align Particle, Atomic Model, Camera Projection for Particles, Cob Web, Crowd: Procedural Crabs, Crowd: Two Wheelers, Filter Emission, FMX Folding Cubes, FMX Growing Flower, FMX Retro Trail, FMX Swarm, Hair Dynamics: Basic Setup, Hair Dynamics: Turbulence, Hair Dynamics: Turbulence Collision, ICE Bezier Deform, ICE Curve Deformer, ICE IK Solver, ICE IK Solver Spider, ICE Roll Deform, Increment Rotation, Instancer Copy UVs, Instancer Kolosseum, Plants Growing on Surface, RBD Bricks Cloning, RBD Cereals PostSimStack, Rolling Gate, Squares Randomly following Footage, States: Bees, States: Tree, Strands Abstract Formula Shape, Tank Chain, Text Dissolve to Particles.

local backup: ice_tutorials_part1.zip (Note that the mt_strandNodes plugin which is part of this backup does not work with current versions of Softimage — use the one above)

Disclaimer: This is from the resourcedump thread on si-community.com so »some restrictions may apply« (but usually don't)

For those in the need to simulate SIMPLE water interactions FAST this is a shallow (2d) water simulator coupled with Lagoa, so it does not look toooooo cheap. It can't do curls and rolling waves, but it will spit some Lagoa particles for your viewing pleasure :D. It served quite well on a little student short, so maybe it can help others. I would love to keep working in it but no time for it, so here it goes. [..]

Continue reading in the resourcedump thread linked above. Related: »Water Surface« by Felix Gebhard (moved below).

local backup: mFlow.scn

This scene demonstrates how to use ICE to simulate water ripples on a polygon grid.

local backup: ripple.zip

Video demo. Curve to Ribbon generates polygon mesh strips based on input curves. There are settings for subdivision, thickness, center and offset as well as for the ribbon plane: XY, XZ, YZ or auto. Works with multiple curves and even merged curves. Requirement: »keyvis Curve Tools« by Eugen Sares (moved directly below).

local backup: CurveRibbon.xsiaddon

Creates a flexible envelope based on the points' distances to nulls with control over falloff/shape/radius for each null. A group or groups are required and the group ID order must match the Deformers ID order. [..] An update on pb_EnvelopeByRadius since I was feeling the need for more options per null. Also one to use with single Weights. Compounds and script attached. The script can be very slow to run (no idea why) and should be applied without the compound inputs and outputs being connected.

Video demo for the current update as well as for the initial release.

local backup: pb_EnvelopeByDistance.xsicompound EnvelopeCPsets_1.0.pys (init script)

A simple version of the pb_EnvelopeByDistance script above outputting to a single weightmap instead of to an envelope map.

local backup: pb_CopiesOnTarget.xsicompound

Demo video. From the si-community thread (link below): A utility to filter Matrices SRT transforms and use them on vectors. Only supports SRT Matrices for now :/.

In another thread by Pedro on si-community.com there's some interesting discussion going on concerning transformations and matrices.

local backup: pb_TransformsFilter.xsicompound pb_TFilter_ADD.xsicompound pb_TFilter_SUB.xsicompound TransformFilterSamples.scn (demo scene)