PRT Volume Jitter

Any ideas on an easy way to jitter particles with in a PRT Volume? (ie by time just so that they aren’t static within the volume during playback) Pretty much like when you grab on the on the Randomness seed value.

It is funny how we spent so much energy ensuring it doesn’t flicker and then somebody suddenly needs it to do just that :wink:

There are several approaches to this, some better than others.
*One obvious solution would be to save the PRT Volume to PRT files. Let’s say you have a file sequence saved with Random Seed 1. Change the Random Seed to 2, start frame to 1 and save every Nth frame where N is, say, 10, overwriting the existing PRTs. Then change the Random Seed to 3, shift the start frame to 2 and save again. Repeat until you have a sequence where every 10 frames you have 10 different random seeds. Then load in a PRT Loader.

*A procedural solution could be implemented using an XForm modifier and a KCM.
The distribution of particles is connected to the spatial coordinates of the voxel they fall into. So the same voxel (in local space) always produces the same distribution given the same Random Seed.
In order to change the voxel coordinates and thus enforce a new distribution, you can add an XForm modifier to the source mesh of the PRT Volume and keyframe its gizmo to move over time. For example, assign a Noise Position controller to the Position track of the XForm modifier. Then add a KCM to the PRT Volume, set the Output to Position, click the “Same Channel As Output” in the Input node, then Subtract from the Position Input with a Script Input set to “$Teapot01.modifiers[#xform].gizmo.transform.row4”, assuming your source is called $Teapot01, of course. This will offset the particles back by the random offset of the XForm modifier, keeping them in their original position, but their voxel coordinates would have shifted randomly, producing the random noise you are after…

I guess we could make the Random Seed track animatable, but I sense Darcy would be against it (probably because I feel the same).

very good, I’ll try both and fairly quick and easy too, thanks a bunch :slight_smile:

No need to have the animated seed, of course if it is there someone will use it!

Although I do wish greeble had one.