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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

How are leaves placed [and simulated]?


Tom

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Hello-

Was studying this older project that someone posted and enjoyed the leaf and force interaction.

I tried deconstructing the Project but was unable to determine how the many leaves were placed in the Choreography. I'm assuming it wasn't done manually but can't figure out how it was done.

 

Does anyone know?

 

Many thanks for any insights.

Tom

LeafZip.zip

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  • Hash Fellow

That's a cool demo!

He probably used "Simple Scatter"

You can put a flat plane in a chor, RMB it, and choose "Simple_Scatter" to randomly distribute many instances of a model on that plane. It also seems to work for curved surfaces.

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Once again the "Wizard of AM" comes to the rescue!!

 

I found the simple scatter plugin but so far it has crashed on me a couple of times (so I must be doing something wrong).

 

Two questions:

1) Do you know if there is any documentation for that plugin?

 

2)When the leaf project was posted there were two versions. One fully simulated and one without. I have attached the leaf blowing project without any simulations created. Do you know the procedure for creating that leaf simulation?

I tried right clicking and everything related to simulations was ghosted. I tried selecting the leafs in the choreography but they were not pickable. Hmmmm.

 

Many thanks!

Tom

Blow_start.prj

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  • Hash Fellow

The brown spotlight and one-patch Ground plane suggest this is a project that predates v19/Bullet and uses Newton.

However when i load it into v18 I get the message that it was created in v19. Is the Blow_Start PRJ resaved in v19?

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Yes, the one I posted was re-saved in v19.

I found the original zip file and it was from 2006 !!!.(attached)  

It still beggars the question of how can a v19 user recreate the simulation that was set up? Or does a person need to start from scratch?

leaf.zip

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  • Hash Fellow

I found an old thread where someone using your name was previously asking about this...

https://forums.hash.com/topic/45932-help-with-force-tutorial/

 

So apparently it is originally a v12 project?

Bullet didn't exist in A:M back then.

It appears to be one of Steffen's projects since the path in the zip has "am_projekte" and "newtonphysics"

http://www.sgross.com/plugins/plugin6/samples.html

Running v12 may not be possible anymore in Windows 10.

When I try it with Newton in v15 I don't get much.

 

In v19 there are Chor plugins to "Apply" and "Modify" Bullet constraints...

image.png

They do function and I was able to get the Bullet objects to be moved by the forces but nothing like the graceful oscillation of the original Newton PRJ.

You might do better with some experimentation.

 

We may have to ask Steffen @yoda64 how it might be redone in Bullet.

 

 

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Could we make a leaf out of stiff cloth. Use the simple scatter effect to spread the leaves around and then use a force to blow them?

Just spit balling but I did an experiment with blowing around cloth based hair with some success so a cloth leaf light work.

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  • Hash Fellow
35 minutes ago, Wildsided said:

Could we make a leaf out of stiff cloth. Use the simple scatter effect to spread the leaves around and then use a force to blow them?

 

For cloth you could use the duplicator wizard since each piece of cloth doesn't need its own bone, a necessity for Newton or Bullet.

Here is an example of money being moved by a force...

 

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All excellent suggestions!

Will have to play around with those ideas... (That errant dollar bill sticking behind must be due to inflation!😄)

I know he is very busy but I did write to Steffen and asked if he was able to update that leaf project ......because it is SOOOOOO Cool! What he had going on with those Forces is remarkable.

Thanks again,

Tom

 

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Thanks again to Rob for hosting another session which upped my AM IQ!

I received a nice reply from Steffen with an updated version of the leaf blowing project using Bullet. His reply is shown below with his attached new project!

 

From Steffen-

"Select the Choreography , than RMB ->  Plugins -> Wizards -> Add Bullet Constraints to multiple models ->

in the plugin dialog set the Hulltype to Box and hit Select all , hold down ctrl and left mouse button on Shortcut to Ground

(to deselect the ground) and than create . This will create the needed bulletconstraints for the models . Than You can simulate. Maybe you need to modify some values for the constraints . This can be done with another plugin .

Selected chor -> RMB -> Plugins -> Wizards -> Modify Bullet Constraints on multiple models"

Blow_start1.prj

Leaves1A.tga

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Interesting...will give it a try.

And thanks again for hosting the session today!

 

BTW-Are you able to post a recording of the session today? I always find little steps and tricks that I missed the first time...

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  • Hash Fellow
On 7/18/2020 at 11:24 PM, Tom said:

BTW-Are you able to post a recording of the session today? I always find little steps and tricks that I missed the first time...

 It is posted. Minus about 20 minutes of mic trouble!

 

 

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  • Hash Fellow
5 hours ago, Tom said:

So you are just changing the size of the funnel over time? Or just adjusting the size of the Magnitude?

The last one widens the funnel over time while the origin remains in the same place.

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Rob-

Discovered that the Simple Scatter Plugin allows the user to fill various shapes using a drop down menu. We were puzzled why some of the leaves dropped through when we were filling a circle.

Excellent that anything can be filled!

SimpleScatterMenu.jpg

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