random-size dart throwing in ICE

Some more dart-throwing exercises in xsi ICE. This time with modulated sizes and spacing.

some more tests, mapping sizes and spacing by weightmaps:

thumbnails link to larger images

This grid has two weight maps modulating size and spacing of the particles. About half way through the sim, I animate the max size down to min size to let the system fill in the spaces.

download ICE compound

ixDartThrowRandSize compound : brute force, random sized sphere packing.

You can drag & drop the link directly into an ICE tree

usage

Create an empty point cloud with a simulation ICE tree and add ixDartThrowRandSize to the tree terminator node.

Plug a geometry into the emitter port, tweak max size, min size and spacing, and press play.

Decent distributions are achieved only after a few thousand frames.

The minimum search size port needs to be set to about double max size plus spacing to find neighbours properly when max size and spacing is varying throughout the simulation.

It is a good idea to animate the max size parameter down to equal min size at some time during the simulation to give the system a chance to fill in the empty spaces left by the early large particle insertions.

Modulate the min size, max size and spacing parameters by plugging in a tree that gets the particle emit location to look up into a weightmap or texturemap.

edit (September 28, 2009)

For those of you using XSI2010, you might be interested in Julian Johnson’s compiled custom ICE node for dart thowing:

http://julianjohnsonsblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/dart-throw-update.html

http://julianjohnsonsblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/dart-throw-custom-ice-node-for.html

Nice one Julian!