Symbolic Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 (edited) Hi, I am trying to create a particle based animation: 1)... where particles are aligned in an ordered way. 2) They move away and fly around for a while... 3) and they land back to their old position. Something like that: // For now, I am just trying to make scattered particles go and land properly on a template. But I am not able to make them get in to the right position and land. They are landing in a wired way. point_sys_3_v5.hipnc Any help or ideas would be great... EDIT: I tried to use a file from the "Flocking Cones Challenge"... it is cpb's file (cpb_conechallenge_tidy.zip) http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=1988&st=12 Edited January 20, 2008 by Symbolic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIguel P Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 (edited) Maybe somethink like this would work. particle_landing.hip Edited January 20, 2008 by MIguel P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 20, 2008 Author Share Posted January 20, 2008 [quote name='MIguel P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 20, 2008 Author Share Posted January 20, 2008 Thanks Miguel. The VOP POP solution is cool... but too advanced for me I was trying to make the particles go to their positions facing the direction of their motion... I know that it was just a quick test and a quick solution... I could not change the behavior of the particles from being "dragged" to their positions to actually "moving" there... And is there a way to make the X, Y, Z of the particles sit exactly on the X, Y, Z axises? I tried UpVector POP but did not get anything... Sorry for keeping asking like that... I appreciate your help... any help... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 26, 2008 Author Share Posted January 26, 2008 Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3__ Posted January 26, 2008 Share Posted January 26, 2008 see attached. uses particle age and a ramp to create an attribute you can use in sops to blend between the particle position and a stored position. in this case the birth location was stored in Cd for convenience. start/end normals are faked. i hate massaging normals. now try and get it working on a deforming emitter! -cpb rto_blend_test.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 27, 2008 Author Share Posted January 27, 2008 Hey cpb, Thanks for your help... I have looked at the file but it seems to be beyond my level of understanding... I will look again... but I just did not get it... The first part... where you control the particles... How they somehow give up following the particles and go back? But thanks... I will try to study the file more... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3__ Posted January 27, 2008 Share Posted January 27, 2008 I will look again... but I just did not get it... The first part... where you control the particles...How they somehow give up following the particles and go back? The emitter has its position transferred to its colour via point sop, $CR = $TX, $CG = $TY, $CB = $TZ. so that the particles can inherit these 'positions' by using the inherit_attributes option in source. The colour pop uses age/lifespan as the x-axis of the alpha ramp, so it stays at zero for about half its life then ramps up to 1. the blend is just a simple crossover between the particle position and the emitter position stored in the colour: ($TX * (1 - $CA)) + ($CR * $CA) ($TY * (1 - $CA)) + ($CG * $CA) ($TZ * (1 - $CA)) + ($CB * $CA) done with the point sop as it just overrides all particle motion. to do it in pops is possible but you'd need to change groups or multiply values with attributes to stop the other pops working on them once they return. all of this wouldn't work if you had a deforming emitter tho. still thinking about that one. -cpb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darric Posted January 28, 2008 Share Posted January 28, 2008 (edited) I've got something really simple that I think is more or less what you're going for; it just uses a blendshape SOP to blend between a particle sim and the static positions, with the blend channel animated as you wish. *attached* Hope it's what you're looking for, and moreso, that it helps! Edit: Hm, probably should have read more as to what you wanted: there is no orientation to direction happening in my example. particleblend.hip Edited January 28, 2008 by Darric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 28, 2008 Author Share Posted January 28, 2008 Hi cpb, Thanks for the extra information. I will go through the file again ... I think it starts to make sense Thank you very much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 28, 2008 Author Share Posted January 28, 2008 Hi Darric, Thanks for your example. I will have a look at it as soon as possible. // About the orientation!? I never managed to get this working. Up Vector POP? Rotation POP? ... non of these never worked for me!? I just do not get it... how it is possible to manipulate particle orientations... It is a mystery for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darric Posted January 28, 2008 Share Posted January 28, 2008 Cpb's example seems to be simple enough, at least for orienting copy geometry while the particles are in motion - i.e., use a Trail SOP to compute velocity, then use the $VX,$VY,$VZ as your point normals. If you want them to point in a specific direction when they're stationary, just blend to the orientation you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 28, 2008 Author Share Posted January 28, 2008 Ok... I kind of start to understand. Thank you very much. I will explore both examples as soon as possible... Great help! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 29, 2008 Author Share Posted January 29, 2008 Hey! I do not believe it!? I did it! Thanks alot guys! ... Storing the position as color and using alpha for the transition is such a clever technique! ... And blending Normals is also very cool! Finally I managed to understand what you mean... Here is the result: box_point_attributes_low.mov cheers. Now, I may try to change the first and the last layout of the boxes ... Like having the first layout as a box shape... make the particles fly around for a while... and make them land as a spheric layout... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darric Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Nicely done! Now, I may try to change the first and the last layout of the boxes ...Like having the first layout as a box shape... make the particles fly around for a while... and make them land as a spheric layout... That shouldn't be too bad! Two blends are better than one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 29, 2008 Author Share Posted January 29, 2008 Thanks! ... but cpb's technique of storing the initial location as color data, it seems like it works for only one object... Maybe I should make it store the location of a different object and then try blending to that one... Tricky! So the particles start as a box shaped pile and fly around and land as a sphere shaped pile... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darric Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Haven't thought about doing it with cpb's method, but it's again easy enough with the BlendShape SOP. *HIP attached* One blendshape for points, one for normals: Did it like that so the timing of the position and orientation blends can be adjusted separately, for a better visual look. particleblend_v2.hip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symbolic Posted January 29, 2008 Author Share Posted January 29, 2008 Haven't thought about doing it with cpb's method, but it's again easy enough with the BlendShape SOP.*HIP attached* One blendshape for points, one for normals: Did it like that so the timing of the position and orientation blends can be adjusted separately, for a better visual look. Wow! Thanks. Will have a look ASAP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masstapro Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 I'm adding to this thread since it's the closest subject to my question and I've found every post very informative. I have a .pic that passes bounding box colors to points on a grid. I copy boxes to these points. They are also being scaled and transformed based on how much red they have. (this video tut sound familiar?). This works all very well. This is an animating geometry since I'm reading in a series of .pic's. I'd like the last .pic (copied boxes with scale, color, transform) to turn into particles and blow away. I was thinking I could use DOPs (have been successful creating rose petals opening then falling off this way), but it's too much processing since I have about 3000 boxes. This thread's example is almost what I want to create, but I need to retain the copied geo (boxes). Hope I've explained it well, keep in mind that I'm probably at the same level as Symbolic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 One way is to add another object and merge in the boxes with color. Scatter points on the boxes, lots of small points. Then pass these in to a new particle system and blow them away. You want slightly more points than pixels to get a convincing transition. Switch the display of the objects on the right frame. Blend the overlap in comp. Another way is to dice the boxes up in to many teeny pieces with say Divide > bricker. Birth points on primitive centers then use the primitive SOP's second input to bind the prims to the points. Take a look at some example files on the primitive SOP. I attached a simple file showing how to bind prims on points. This is quite seamless and doesn't require a blend. primsOnParticles_H9_v01.hip I hope I am on the right track with what you want... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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