Noobini

not sure what you're trying to do with -ve strength: (it's unbreakable) I would go for strength = 0 EDIT: ah ok, maybe it's to do with you wanting to retain the 'large dents'...my bad.

just turn it into a wall (extrude X amt, move up/down half X) for ray ? RayWall.hipnc (a bit unclear if you have ALREADY done this or not...but thought I'd throw it up anyway...on closer inspection of your fig 1. some of the normals ain't perpendicular ?)

was just goofing around and found that if you change your font command to: points("../foreach_begin1", 0, "letter") it works too.....and even if you change the 0 to WHATEVER number...it still works coz...everytime it executes for a point there is only ONE point it's getting the "letter" from A bit more cryptic..but much shorter...

simply this ? @primnum==@numprim-(rint(rand(@Frame)*4)) haaaa!!! caught me own bug.....it really should be this @primnum==@numprim-(rint(rand(@Frame)*3))-1 (if you use *4 version, while you scrub quickly you'd think it's working.....but sometimes NOT....ie...there MUST be at least a -1 to protect overflow)

oh bummer...that would throw a spanner in the works then

Pointdeform ? (or in Max terms, skinwrap)

in the voronoi, Cut tab, enter a small value in Cut Plane Offset.. then just apply an extrude after..

methinks be careful with int() It's TRUNCATING....not just casting to type int. So just randomly....round(1.8) = 2 but int(1.8) = 1 To me the original method is a bit 'convoluted'.....where you'd need to digest this bit of info: fit01(num, newmin, newmax) Returns a number between newmin and newmax that is relative to num in the range between 0 and 1. If the value is outside the 0 to 1 it will be clamped to the new range. ...the 'outside' range bit... So I've fooled around with other methods...personally, I prefer the last....where you know it's one or the other..so simply add 1..assuming object names are obj1 and obj2... fit.hipnc

here are several ways... group_everything_else_question_vu.hipnc

@distance = distance(@P, point(0, "P", @nearpt[1])); this finds dist between current point being processed, @P, and its nearest neighbour....@nearpt[0] would be ITSELF...so we skip to @nearpt[1] However, I'm puzzled why your statement v@nearpt = pcfind(0, "P", @ptnum, 10.0, 2); works tho ?...to me it should be v@nearpt = pcfind(0, "P", @P, 10.0, 2); can someone explain ?

ahh..that's an annoying gotcha....(it is annoying in the 'group by bbox' sense that is, you would have thought it should be smart enough to know 2 intersecting volumes means 'union'). all you have to do is add a Boolean after the merge....so by default, the Bool will resolve the 2 self intersecting spheres...

mine's a bit clunky... infecting based on age_vu.hipnc

ahh...WTH..i'll give it a go...as you can tell from the tone..I don't know WTH I'm doin'... Basically, create Ocean surface (yeah booooo hisssss for using shelf tool, as said, see previous sentence)...you see it uses a grid by default....so...why not stick in a donut...? Docean.hipnc

Camel case works...ie. FrameNumber is fine. But your logic is screwed. First, you have if(@Frame<chi("FrameNumber")){ removepoint(0,@ptnum); } and you said "if the current frame number is greater than this value then delete the points coming from the first input ?? Well, no...if LESS than, then remove...so are you sure whatever logic is right here ? Second, the timeshift is a moving target...ie. $F+20....so it's ALWAYS moving...you'll never hit it....(ie. whether you use greater than or less than, it'll always be true or false....but never hit a tipping point where it CHANGES true to false or false to true) If you explicitly set in timeshift frame to say 20, then the tipping point will be at frame 20.

I did try the pressButton() method.....but couldn't get it to work.....I'll try it again, maybe it was just some sort of typo on my part. Thanks. EDIT: well waddayaknow....just tried it again and it worked !!!....yeah must have been a typo previous times I tried it. anyway FYI, hou.node('../solver1').parm('resimulate').pressButton() works...(change to python language, of course)