Radial Color Gradient Test

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I have built a custom VOP network to test and see If I could get the same functionality of metaball color though a magnet, with more control and greater speed.  I have always had trouble with metaball, dialing in the falloff gradient just right.  

 

My VOP network has a few extra features, but basically works in a similar way, you can use a XZY center and a radius for the spherical gradient, then it has a ramp control which is key for dialing in the falloff better.  

 

I also have the ability to clamp the color, add to an existing color, or multiply with an existing color.  This allows me to stack/layer a few of these together if I want multiple source points. 

 

Performance was not my end goal, but In looking at the performance monitor on my machine it looks like its slightly faster, but basically the same speed as the magnet, the times are jumping around a bit, so its hard for me to determine the exact speed. When I stack them though Ill get worse performance. I'm not sure how to create a single system where the user could specify multiple sources. 

 

Ill post my hip file. I would appreciate any feedback you guys could give about my process.  I was looking around for tools like this and couldn't find anything.  Basically it uses a distance measurement to drive the spherical shape, maybe there is a better way?

 

 

SphereGradient_PerformanceTest_V1.hipnc

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...I'm not sure how to create a single system where the user could specify multiple sources. ...

 

pointclouds

just iterate pointcloud ( For or While loop vop), measure distance and compute gradient per each point from current position, then maybe do weighted average of all found samples by distance to get the final value