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That's a good idea thefishnut, I'll look into implenting that for 1.5 aswell. So a scatter object 'test' would export for example as 'test_sub1.csv', 'test_sub2.csv' and 'test_sub3.csv', when the VARIANT (future name) setting is set to 3.

Time for an announcement!

The big new feature in 1.5 is going to be curves. When you scatter along a curve (or a straight line ofcourse), you can easily create an arrays of instances. Be it streetlights along a road, hedges, jewerly chains, ropes, ivy plants, or whatever you guys can come up with (I'm very interested in your creative ways to take advantage of this).

Work-in-progress:



Now that I have a lot stuff figured out, I can develop a wide range of in-program tools that will aid your scattering possibilities. I won't spoil what in-program tools I have in mind besides curves but I think it's going to be very useful. Lots of work to be done on the curves though, gotta get that down first.

Added various tools to mess around with the curves. You can easily align/oppose control nodes so curves will be nicely continuous.




As requested, I added scatter object property 'variants' for AREA, PER-TRI, RAY and CURVE scatter objects. When set to 2 or higher, CSV instances will be divided among the variants on export. "_variantX" will be added to CSV filenames, where X is the variant index.




It has come to my attention that not everyone always carefully names their materials (for AREA and PER-TRI scatter objects). For that purpose I'm now introducing the tool 'rename from OBJ', which allows you to simply pinpoint a face in the scene, and the selected material will be renamed to the material of the face you just selected.

(screenshot is not showing the aiming reticule on the cursor)




More coming soon

Hi Phantom107,
How can I open the other properties (like area scale).. whicha are under the arrow I guess.
I cannot open the arrow.. Maybe have I missed something int he manual about that?
greetz,

EDited:

oops, sorry... I found it...just scroll it... duh

1.5 is almost ready to go. I'm working on some extra stuff for the béziers and the ability to choose a directory to export.

Phantom107 wrote:1.5 is almost ready to go. I'm working on some extra stuff for the béziers and the ability to choose a directory to export.

That is good news.. it happens to be that at this point I really can use the 'variants'... see below I wanted to split up the csv ile in random csv files to make a mixture of objects without overlap.
I can do that by opening the one csv created by PS and then split the lines of the file in more files.
The example shown is just split in half without randomize.
But the new feature 'variants' will do this, right?
That would be great making a field of variant green, or a forest, or a crowd of people, and much more...

Additonally I want to ask if it is possible to set a number of random z-rotation
Now it is on or off, but i.e. I want to make a crowd of people looking the same direction (music concert), but not exactly, but say a difference of 5 degrees randomly (ie. 5 is -5 to +5 degrees).
Like you have the XY-rotation.

Looking forward to the next release

greetz,

rappet, please check your PM for a pre-release version of the software. Then you can try the new variants feature.

As for the crowd, I ran into the same issue this same problem during my own projects. After 1.5 is released, I will work on a specific scattering mode for people. I can do a lot of neat stuff with code to make it work right (like compiling multiple people textures on the same image, 3d clicking locations in your scene where you want people placed). But for now it will have to wait. Got you covered.

rappet wrote: That would be great making a field of variant green, or a forest, or a crowd of people, and much more...

Did you try to use the random color texture node? Variant green can be easily obtained on scatter nodes.

smicha wrote:

rappet wrote: That would be great making a field of variant green, or a forest, or a crowd of people, and much more...

Did you try to use the random color texture node? Variant green can be easily obtained on scatter nodes.

Hi Smicha,
Yes, I did and that is awsome. This example shows only 3 objects used.
For grass or so it might be good enough to use random texture node, but I want different shapes to be scattered mixed... then only the random texture node is not enough.
greetz,

rappet wrote: but I want different shapes to be scattered mixed...

Are you saying that you want your objects to be randomly rotated? Could you please be more precise.

PS. I am asking LUA coders for something extremely important for me and strictly important with instances. Please vote for this code
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=41388


Guus - will your software handle 1GB obj easily? I must populate some stones and grass over huge obj area?

smicha wrote:

rappet wrote: but I want different shapes to be scattered mixed...

Are you saying that you want your objects to be randomly rotated? Could you please be more precise.
...

I want different shaped objects to be scattered mixed, say cube, globe, cilinder... Then I want the objects difference a certain amount in rotation on vertical axis.... Like people looking to a concert.. With rotation differs i.e. 5 degrees, looks more natural then all looking exactly in same direction.
And then I can also use the random color texture.
Goal is to make a field of scattered objects with to the eye all looking unique in variant of shape, color and slightly rotation.