Generate copies from mesh and position each on a point?

[Mugatu]

Hey everyone, Im new to ICE and have been trying to generate copies of a polygonal object then position each of those copies on the point of another polygonal object e.g. a sphere or grid.

I managed to create the copies ok but cannot figure out how to tell them to position on the points i get from the other mesh, could anyone point me in the right direction?

Cheers, K

[xsisupport]

Something along these lines should do it:
http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/ice-modeling-using-a-curve-to-position-copies/

[Mugatu]

Hey, thanks for the reply, I have been watching the digital tutor tutorials and they include a similar example using curves. Is it possible to distribute over faces and points though?

Would it just be a matter of changing the 'get spiral point position' with the point position of my chosen object?

Lastly, is 'get polygon index' the same as getting all face positions on a piece of geometry? There doesn't seem to be a 'get face position' but there is a 'get point position'.

Thanks again K

[xsisupport]

Hey, thanks for the reply, I have been watching the digital tutor tutorials and they include a similar example using curves. Is it possible to distribute over faces and points though?

Would it just be a matter of changing the 'get spiral point position' with the point position of my chosen object?

Lastly, is 'get polygon index' the same as getting all face positions on a piece of geometry? There doesn't seem to be a 'get face position' but there is a 'get point position'.

Thanks again K

Yes

Yes

No. Use a Get Data and get PolygonPosition

[Mugatu]

Hey, thanks again really appreciate the info Was using the get data node today but just couldn't get everything matching up, guess it just takes some practice

[Chris_TC]

There doesn't seem to be a 'get face position' but there is a 'get point position'.

These compounds, like "Get Point Position", are included to facilitate working with particles (which was the original main use of ICE). They really don't do anything fancy, they just read an attribute using a Get Data node, for example "self.PointPosition".

You can use the Explore button on the Get Data nodes to find out which attributes you can access. For geometry type stuff, you've got a lot of attributes starting with "Vertex", "Edge" or "Polygon", e.g.:
VertextoPolygons (returns all the polygons a vertex is part of)
EdgeIndex (returns the edge index)
PolygonNormal (returns the polygon normal)
.
.
.

[Mugatu]

Thanks for that useful tip will get to exploring some data

[Mugatu]

Just an update, for some reason I cant get that compound to work. I have a sphere and a cyclinder, I am trying to copy and attach the cyclinder to every face of the sphere. The compound is all hooked and has no errors but the sphere and duplicated cyclinders (based on poly count) just sit in there original position.

Really cant figure out what the hell im doing wrong, so frsutrated. Should I be creating empty poly meshes, I read somewhere thats the workflow but dont really understand it.

Thanks anyway

[xsisupport]

Just an update, for some reason I cant get that compound to work. I have a sphere and a cyclinder, I am trying to copy and attach the cyclinder to every face of the sphere. The compound is all hooked and has no errors but the sphere and duplicated cyclinders (based on poly count) just sit in there original position.

Really cant figure out what the hell im doing wrong, so frsutrated. Should I be creating empty poly meshes, I read somewhere thats the workflow but dont really understand it.

Thanks anyway

sample scene
done with Softimage 2012 SAP

[Mugatu]

Hey thanks a lot for the example scene that showed exactly what i was trying to do (the sphere with the cylinders per face orientated to face normal). Did you create the IceTree on an empty mesh and then pull in the sphere and cylinder where needed?

As I mentioned before this may be where I was going wrong as I was trying to create the Ice tree on the sphere or cylinder, Im not exactly sure yet when it is appropriate to use the empty polymesh

Thanks again though, much appreciated

[xsisupport]

Hey thanks a lot for the example scene that showed exactly what i was trying to do (the sphere with the cylinders per face orientated to face normal). Did you create the IceTree on an empty mesh and then pull in the sphere and cylinder where needed?

As I mentioned before this may be where I was going wrong as I was trying to create the Ice tree on the sphere or cylinder, Im not exactly sure yet when it is appropriate to use the empty polymesh

Thanks again though, much appreciated

You're very welcome.

Here's a video walkthrough; I answer your question at the very start.
And here's part 2, dealing with the rotation of the copies.

[xsisupport]

Hey thanks a lot for the example scene that showed exactly what i was trying to do (the sphere with the cylinders per face orientated to face normal). Did you create the IceTree on an empty mesh and then pull in the sphere and cylinder where needed?

As I mentioned before this may be where I was going wrong as I was trying to create the Ice tree on the sphere or cylinder, Im not exactly sure yet when it is appropriate to use the empty polymesh

Thanks again though, much appreciated

You're very welcome.

Here's a video walkthrough; I answer your question at the very start.

[TwinSnakes007]

Been following this thread, and I looked at the second video about aligning the copies, and I had a different approach. Instead of using PolygonRefFrame, I used the PolygonNormal plugged into the ToVector of the IncrementRotationWith2Vectors node, and it appears to achieve the same result. You also have to set the LocalVector to the Y axis (0,1,0) as well.

[xsisupport]

Been following this thread, and I looked at the second video about aligning the copies, and I had a different approach. Instead of using PolygonRefFrame, I used the PolygonNormal plugged into the ToVector of the IncrementRotationWith2Vectors node, and it appears to achieve the same result. You also have to set the LocalVector to the Y axis (0,1,0) as well.

Yes, for sure you could do that. I'd done something like that in another project, so this time I was dead-set on doing it with the PolygonRefFrame ;-)

Update: actually I can't seem to get it to work in my setup...any advice?