Scatter tools

[milanvasek]

hey guys. i am almost done with some updates of scatter tools. still fighting with toolbar and python but there is a video i wanted to share and see if you have any sugestions...



as i wrote in video description, i tried to make the workflow more consistent.
first you scatter some objects (blue buttons), then you modify their atributes like size, shape, orientation... (green buttons) but usualy, you want to do those modifications based on some rules (red buttons)
cool thing is that you can combine those rules as you want. that means you can for example change the color of instances that are inside geometry, but only in certain distance from null and smaller than some value...

there is also a way to place specific instances on nulls and control their exact positon, size, orientation... well, check the video

[Memag]

Looking great Milan.

[origin]

very cool!

[Maximus]

this is the best scatter tool ever! cant wait! Stunning work Milan!

[eternal art]

Amazing tool .

[wireframex]

Well done

Is it a shareware ?

[druitre]

It looks great, can't wait!

As for suggestions: is it possible to have an animated effector influence SRT of scattered objects after the scattering to simulate dynamics? (Perhaps 'execute around null' already provides for this, in that case, never mind my asking... )

For example, to set up something like grass waving in the wind, with control over where the gusts of wind go - I'd imagine animating a null over an area with scattered objects that react to that null in a customizable way. Turbulized point at with randomized spring-like return to original position, for instance.

Or a car driving through that field of grass, flattening the blades where the wheels pass. Here it would also be useful to have a switch from one state to the other, so the wheels would leave tracks.


Another suggestion that just popped into my mind: can one also scatter by volume? I'm seeing surface/at null/on curve, is that right?

And, last suggestion (or rather, question), is there an 'offset along normal' parameter?(perhaps in the green 'transform' box)

[Rork]

Wow, amazing update!

This is still all based on factory nodes right?

Can't wait to play with this

rob

[milanvasek]

thanks guys


Rork: it's still very basic stuff. few nodes packed into compounds just to have some interface that hopefully make more sense now. that's also why i call it v1.1 (oh, i feel almost like a developer )


druitre: well, animation might be tricky. if you want something like really dynamic grass, i would recommend using strands... but i tried once using orientation based on null distance constrained to feet of character and it looked kind of like grass was being deformed... well, from distance


i will take a look into it and maybe add some basic stuff with states

might be also interesting to control animation time of instances...


scatter by volume, well, you can just switch it inside simple scatter compound.

offset along normal is inside simple scatter already. i can add it into transform node as well, but then it will require connecting of input geometry...

[druitre]

Hi Milan,

no, I wouldn't want real dynamics, I'd do that with, well, real dynamics. What I'm thinking of is realtime feedback on fields of grass or trees in the distance looking like they're waving in the wind - fakery, in other words. Stuff that would take too long or be too heavy to compute with dynamics. But that would add life to scenery in a global, easy to control, semi-random way - much like the scattering but focused on motion/change.

Controlling animation time of instances, yes, that's the sort of thing I'm thinking of. States, too. Blendshapes.

Anyway, what you already have looks fantastic.

[mirkoj]

Heya, I was just wondering...
I've got couple different rocks in one group. They are different in shape and in texture.
But after applying that group as instance source all rocks in there share one material.
Any ideas if it is possible to just use all these with their materials scattered around or need to create different pointcloud for each type?
Thanks

[gustavoeb]

not in front of SI right now (sorry), but, you could use a Switch node in the render tree and drive it with some sort of shape ID or something...

then connect the different materials to the switch node

[mirkoj]

argh found it. needed to change number of objects in group in m_simple)scatter node it was reading only 1st object. my bad.
I;ve forgot about that, now watched again that small qtime video tutor.
Would be great to have that video on vimeo as well ;)

[milanvasek]

argh found it. needed to change number of objects in group in m_simple)scatter node it was reading only 1st object. my bad.
I;ve forgot about that, now watched again that small qtime video tutor.
Would be great to have that video on vimeo as well ;)

that old video is recorded with some codec that vimeo wont accept...
well, i will put the new version of scattertools here soon and make some basic videos as well.
but i'm afraid the toolbar won't be 100% working, because i don't have enough time to learn python

[mirkoj]

Nice. Well honestly I guess it is better for people to get used to ICE from start.
More freedom and also ICE is there to stay, and staying away from ICE in Softimage would be same as skipping to learn Scene explorer
I'm not in ICE as much as I would love to but it is still simple in enough to get all important stuff.
Thanks again for amazing compound, I've just got some time to play with it for something and LOVING it!

[milanvasek]

Nice. Well honestly I guess it is better for people to get used to ICE from start.
More freedom and also ICE is there to stay, and staying away from ICE in Softimage would be same as skipping to learn Scene explorer
I'm not in ICE as much as I would love to but it is still simple in enough to get all important stuff.
Thanks again for amazing compound, I've just got some time to play with it for something and LOVING it!

I agree, I love ICE and connecting nodes... reason I started making toolbar was to speed up basic setup only (click one button instead of Get empty pointcloud - create ICE tree - create nodes - drag&drop geometry - connect all those nodes...) Then i thought it would be nice to have more buttons and I tried to make them, but realized, that it gets quite complex and it would be impossible to make it without python knowledge it's a shame because i would like to give people 100% working tools. well, maybe there will be someone to finish it and share it later