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Phantom107 wrote:Phantom Scatter 1.7 b will arrive shortly, which next to minor fixes and improvements, will have expanded control over the variants feature, that will allow you to set a chance % distribution across the variants as well as slope placement customization.

Awesome, this is amazing news!


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Phantom107 wrote:I'm trying to put some new stuff on my site. Any of you Phantom Scatter users got anything nice to show?

All I can share at the moment are some WIP I created with RAY-scatter.

Instead of using raindrops as "drop" object and splashes as "impact" object I used roses and let Phantom Scatter calculate some drop angles and impacts.

Originally this was supposed to be a valentine project.
February 14 passed and the project vanished in the WIP folder to pick it up at a later day.

The workflow I used was:
Create scene in OR plugin and export as .ocs file.
Set up materials for the object you want to scatter in OR plugin and export as .ocs file.
The benefit of exporting as .ocs is that you can use the created .obj to import in Phantom Scatter.

In Phantom Scatter I created one .csv file for the falling roses and one .csv file for the "impact" roses on the ground.
In OctaneRender standalone I imported all .ocs files and combined them with scatter nodes and the .csv files.
The rose impact nodes I combined with an additional Postion node to fine tune the orientation a bit.

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I rendered out a quick WIP image at 1920x1080 with 2000spix.
For a final version of the image with a character I would probably add:
- Different colors
- Different rose morph shapes
- some addtional petals floating around
etc...

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In any case:

Thank you so much for all your work!

I am very pleased to announce that I am bringing another innovation in the 1.7 b release of Phantom Scatter. This one gave me a big headache but I got it to work eventually!

So here it is: IMAGE-based-scatter

What it does is allow you to you use a grayscale-image and use that as a mask to do scatters on. The imported image follows the UV-coordinates of your model, so it can be extremely powerful when used in the right hands.

It even supports density:
black → 0% chance of instance placement
gray → 50% chance of instance placement (every different grayscale color will correspond with a different % as you would expect)
white → 100% chance of instance placement
So basically, it can be seen as AREA-scatter with a custom heightmap instead of the perlin noise.



The exporter on this does not work yet. I'll post a cool render using this as soon as I get that to work.

Wow... That is an amazing feature. Great job!

Phantom Scatter 1.7 b is now available!

All licensees should have gotten an e-mail with the download. If not, please contact me!

Visit the website here: http://guusthissen.nl/scatter/

» Fixed the exporting of CLOUD-scatter when using a custom directory.
» Added notice in the CLOUD export function.
» Added function 'flip Q/E movement'.
» To make Phantom Scatter more accessible/understandable, the term 'materials' has been changed to 'scatter surfaces'. It's just a name change, functionality is identical.
» Instead of [spacebar], [F11] is now used to make the program go fullscreen.
» Using [spacebar] in a scatter surface name will automatically type in a '_'.
» You can now define a chance % and max slope angle for variants in the main GUI, allowing for much greater variation control. Note that for RAY-scatter, only the chance % is optional.
» Added function 'equalize variants', used to reset the chance parameters of the variants.
» Fixed graphical problems, improved GUI graphics, GUI curve is now much higher quality.
» Fixed a problem with z-variation on AREA scatter objects.
» Fixed rare problems with the wrong number of confirmed instance exports.
» Added a new scatter type: IMAGE-based scatter. This scatter type works like an AREA-scatter, except you can enter a custom heightmap image to determine where the scatter will be placed. Density is fully supported from the image mask: black = 0%, white = 100%, grayscale percentage depends on the color (as you would expect).
» Added function 'link', allowing you to browse to a PNG image file on your PC. This reference will be saved inside the scatter object so if you change that source image, that will carry over your changes!
» Added function 'update', allowing you to re-load the linked image (incase you want to edit and update it while Phantom Scatter is running).
» Added function 'scale', allowing you to scale the resulting scatter pattern up or down.

Wow, that rocks!

If anybody gets an error about MSVCP120.dll missing, that is because you will need the need the visual C++ runtime: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=40784

Select the option vcredist_x86.exe, regardless if your machine is 32-bit or 64-bit.

Phantom Scatter 1.7 b-02 is now available!

All licensees should have gotten an e-mail with the download. If not, check your spam folder and otherwise please contact me!

Visit the website here: http://guusthissen.nl/scatter/

This release contains the following two bugfixes:

» Fixed a problem with volatile PNG image data, which caused the program to crash.
» UVs are now automatically shifted upon import, which means you can go into the negative with your UVs, not worry about it and still have it work as expected.

cool.
Can the landscape stuff be done with the heightmap+image based scatter?

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... r&start=20

Absolutely. You could combine a couple of scatters and masks (heightmaps) for the grass and then use BRUSH-scatter to place some trees around.

Phantom Scatter 1.7 c is now available!

All licensees should have gotten an e-mail with the download. If not, check your spam folder and otherwise please contact me!

Visit the website here: http://guusthissen.nl/scatter/

This release contains the following improvements:

» Added function 'copy properties' for scatter objects, allows you to copy the current scatter object's properties to another existing one.
» Fixed a problem when duplicating AREA-scatter objects.
» Added function 'save', allows you to save the current state. Remembers the current mode, imported OBJ, camera x/y/z/h/v, and depending on the mode: current project, scatter surface, scatter object.
» Added function 'load', allows you load the saves state.
» Fixed a problem when duplicating AREA-scatter objectsFixed a problem with volatile PNG image data, which caused the program to crash.
» UVs are now automatically shifted upon import, which means you can go into the negative with your UVs, not worry about it and still have it work as expected.