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Vince, if you enjoy scripting (XSI) particles I
suggest you contact a physician immediately ;) - and call your mom
too!!
I got it working, thanks Sebastien, and yes I
learned something which expanded my particle capabilities here - and
Mathieu, I can't agree more - this i s a very usefull list. I try and help keep
it that way by giving advice whereever I can too.
Morten Bartholdy
3D & VFX
Artist
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 7:51
PM
Subject: Re: Particle obstacle
friction???
Point taken. You know, there's a rightful debate around
artistic vs. scripting workflows in our industry that goes far beyond this
thread. Programming is taking more and more space and I can easily understand
the frustration of having to script your own features when your skills are
more aimed toward the artistic aspect of the process. For some reason I got
used to it to a point where I actually enjoy scripting particles even though I
sincerly consider myselft more ish
than td ;-)
I know from experience
that the collision problem you have also happens in Maya. After all those
years it's still there and the only trick most people use to go around that
annoyance is to clamp the velocity. Sometimes, scaling up the whole scene will
help making it less noticable.
Let's wait and see how things like this can
be done more easily once we finally put our hands on the new particle
system.
In the meantime, I'm glad you got your script to work and maybe the
next time your client/sup asks you to turn those particles' colour to blue
when they hit the ground then you'll know what to do because it's not beyond
you anymore :-)
cheers
On 9/28/06, Morten
Bartholdy <xsi(at)colorshopvfx.dk> wrote:
I fully undeerstand what you are saying Vince.
My point is, the simpler stuff should be under the hood, driven by buttons
like particle speed, collision and rotations are. I don't think it is too
much to ask to have collisiopns and frictions affect rotations and activated
by a tick box or slider. For future revisions I would definately prefer a
system which is robust and very widely capable, but requires a bit of
TD'ing to do complex stuff, though simple stuff like this ought not
require creation of general events and insertion of code, even if one line
can do it.
I have used particles quite a lot (without
having to script) and know my way around most of the stuff, but still run in
to problems like this, where the only answer is to do some or even very
little scripting to get it done, and I still don't have time to take from
production and sit down and learn scripting.
- Morten
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 6:13 PM
Subject:
Re: Particle obstacle friction???
Hope you didn't get me wrong, I'm not saying the procedure
should be trivial for the first time, I understand scripting is not
appealing for eveyone.
However we're likely to deal with problems like
this all the time and because of the procedural nature of particle
animation, it'd be impossible to have an interface designed for each
particular task.
If I was you I'd give a try at what Sebastien wrote,
it's step-by-step. I haven't tested it though, I can't tell if it'll work
but if the logic makes sense to you -I'm sure it does-, you'll get to
solve any problem.
Otherwise, your expectations regarding XSI's new
particle system might too high.
On 9/27/06, Morten
Bartholdy <xsi(at)colorshopvfx.dk> wrote:
Vince, this is just because you have your
head well around the P-system already and TDish stuff appears to be
second nature to you. To me, being a generalist having to do all sorts
of tasks, it would be wonderful to be able to script even simple stuff
like this, but I never have the time to sit down and find out how. I
need the software to be designed to make simle things like this easy,
meaning built in button functionality - not scripting, however
simple.
- Morten
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 4:30 PM
Subject:
Re: Particle obstacle friction???
Better? Chances are that even if they do, you'll have
to deal with the same logic challenges.
Give it a try, it can't be
easier to do with nodes anyways ;-)
On 9/27/06, Morten Bartholdy <
xsi(at)colorshopvfx.dk > wrote:
Thanks Mac, I understand what you are
saying but I am afraid that is beyond me. I wish Softimage would
release a better P system soon...
- Morten
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:08 PM
Subject:
RE: Particle obstacle friction???
I might
have a solution but it involves a little
scripting…
Don't
have time to check it out right now but use the user parameter
option in the ptype ppg. Essentially create a custom user
parameter call it particle_hit_floor. Once the particle hits the
floor set the value of the user parameter, example:
particle_hit_floor =30 and store the particle rotation values. Now
you can have a loop that runs and sets the rotation to the stored
values if the particle_hit_floor param = 30. or something like
that…
MAC
Now if only there also
was a mechanism built in to make them stop rotating when they lie
still (one that doesn't require scripting that
is).
----- Original
Message -----
Sent: Wednesday,
September 27, 2006 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: Particle
obstacle friction???
How stupid of me to
not htink of adding friction to the particles
too...
Now everything works
just fine - thanks Peter!
----- Original
Message -----
Sent: Wednesday,
September 27, 2006 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: Particle
obstacle friction???
just to mak sure:
you need friction on both the obstacle and the particles
(ptype > environment > below all the
forces.)
usually I put
friction to 1 on the obstacle and then tweak the ptype
friction to get what I want.
also try "use
particle size for collision" to see which works best for
your case.
no need to mess
with accuracy or collision type, or
rbd's
----- Original
Message -----
Sent: Wednesday,
September 27, 2006 1:17 PM
Subject: Particle
obstacle friction???
I have done a
particle animation where particles hit the ground and are
supposed to bounce a bit and then stop. I
have increased coliision friction to almost 100% but
the particles still slide along the ground after impact. Any
ideas on how to get it working? Upping the collision
accuracy, B-plane, b-box or actual shape - doesn't
matter.
I know, last
resort is to plot and edit fcurves after impact but that
kind of sucks. I have even considered RBD but would like to
know if I can get the particle solution working before
spending the extra time?
Morten
Bartholdy
3D & VFX Artist
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