Just posted feedback on Octanes volumes, but while im at it thought to also post some feedback on scatter....my most used tool!
Scatter (in my opinion from an environment work perspective) is Octanes biggest selling point. Scatter is so insanely powerful, but its very bare bones as far as features go currently. Thought i'd list a few things I think could make it better.
1. Object Assignment. Instead of nesting objects in a scatter, it would be so helpful if you could assign objects to each scatter via the object tag. When loading in huge speedtree assets for example (in the spirit of optimisation), its such a memory hog if you have a duplicated tree in multiple scatters (say for FG, medium, BG, thats loaded in 3 times). Idealy, the tree would be loaded in once, and assigned to the 3 scatters allowing mixing and matching.
2. Instance Placment. Ontop of the above. Would be great to have this work but for individual hand placment, referencing the single loaded in clone. We can of course do this in C4D in instances, but seem to be a no brainer to include single asset duplicating into this incredibly fast system.
3. Clone Transform Tools. Being able to select clones, delete clones, move clones, rotate clones, freely paint clones (outside of vertex) etc would be the next step in the right direction. Sometimes you have a perfect seed outside of that 1 clone. Its SO annoying to manually remove this using mograph or some other way....couldnt we just delete it/move it out of the way/rotate it to something more compositionally sound etc?
4. Randomisation. Having scale randomisation, rotation randomisation, position randomasition built in just cuts down on extra steps. Being able to enhance this ontop with effects/noise patterns will bring the best of mogrpahs random and shader effectors int scatter.
5. Scatter CC. Being able to colour correct entire scatters is again another step to minumise clicks and provide more freedom with look dev.
6. Source proximity coloura data. Grass comes to mind, setup a ground diffuse map with various green and brown gradients and have the scattered grass on top be able to read this colour info and adopt that colour variation for a huge step in realism. You can do this through a very slow shader system in C4D but again, having this as an option in the the scatter would be amazing. Would help for blending assets to the ground plane also.
7. Feathering. Having feathering/bluring on the normal threshold/slope mask.
8. Rules. Being able to distribute using rules, for example. If I scatter rocks, then I want pebbles scattered around these rocks, then I want dead grass scattered in between these pebbles etc. Right now you can set this up with Scale but being able to have a heirachy would be handy, as again, WAY less clicks. Especially if you want to change the noise pattern, you need to go into each scatter, 3 different times. 1 master control here would be wonderful.
9. Edge Mode. For example if you have a large grass area with a path, you have 2 clones, a wide grass and a thin grass, being able to assign the thin grass along the edge of an assigned region so you can get fine detail along that edge, and large ground detail all else covered by a single scatter.
10. Clone Blending. Right now in C4D we can blend clones using the Position field. This is binary so a clone is on or off within this noise pattern. Lets say one of these clones is red, and another is green, being able to blend these clones along that noise pattern would provide more options when it comes to realism. Some times you want the harshness, othertimes not. This could also be use blending between dead grass and fresh grass. Normaly you'd need 2 grass scatters to blend between each other, not ideal if this could all be handled within 1 single scatter. *** Not talking about blending the colours, but blending the clones.
11. Scatter on Scatter. Not sure if this is a pipedream, but being able to scatter on a scatter would be awesome. Say I want moss scattered on a rock, then that rock scattered with the scattered moss. Not sure how doable this is, but thought to include it in.
12. Rail/Spline Scatter. Being able to clone on a rail/spline for things like hedges/buildings etc. Especially with buildings, being able to bring in a city grid spline and assign Buildings to that with spacing/rotational controls. Right now we are limited for Vertex scatter for a grid, we need more flexibility here.
Thats it for now. Happy to go into more detail if needed
Keen to hear any thoughts.
AW
