One of the common uses of Pflow+Box 3 that we use is it’s ability to scatter a bunch of little objects onto another object. Often they are normal aligned, one particle/object per vertex or evenly distributed onto an animated mesh. This is a pretty standard multiscatter type of functionality that many of you are aware of. Another trick we often have to overcome is when distributing one particle per vert or face on a surface when that surface has changing topology. Essentially we use box three to spawn / delete particles as the vert/face they are spawned on come in and out of existence.
My question is: Does stoke provide superior workflow, speed, control over the pflow / box method of scattering objects?
I am looking for ways to use Stoke outside of typical VFX particles/dust/explosions/etc. More for advanced complex animation and modelling workflows.
Nope, Stoke does not provide much in terms of putting objects on surfaces. That is more in the Krakatoa+Magma+Frost realm. For example, you could distribute particles with PRT Surface on a static snapshot of the mesh, then use Magma to move the particles to the closest point on surface of an animated version of the mesh (even with changing topology), and use Frost to replace each particles with a surface-oriented mesh…
Stoke is mainly for field editing and particle advection. It can integrate with Krakatoa and Frost, but I don’t see what it could bring to this specific case…
“distribute particles with PRT Surface on a static snapshot of the mesh”- Using Stoke?
“use Magma to move the particles to the closest point on surface of an animated version of the mesh (even with changing topology)” - Using Krakatoa?
Can you tell me a bit more about how this might work?
I only have the eval of Krakatoa, not the full deal – Not sure If I’m tracking with you, but this sound very intriguing!
No, using Krakatoa PRT Surface to distribute the particles. Or you could distribute using some other method.
Then use Magma in Krakatoa to move them to the deforming surface using NearestPoint or something like that.
Finally, use Frost to mesh. Frost can put a shape on each vertex of a mesh anyway, but if topology is changing, you might want to do something more complex.
If the topology is changing a lot, there is no good way to preserve the original distribution. E.g. if you start with a Sphere and end up with a Dragon, it will be hard to track which particle has to stick where, esp. if the face count is changing… So it really depends on the particular case.