procedural population variation

[Dune]

Instead of hijacking Frank's topic: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=10752.0, here's a new post with my latest improvement on procedural population variation. Made a mix of several functional noises.

This has all sorts of interesting side effects; I'm now rendering an image where I attached this tgc to the opacity function of the object's leaves. Very nice effect... autumn!

I too would like to know your workflow in this Volker, as it seems you get the same with a PF.

---Dune

[dandelO]

Thanks, Dune.
Volker, a quote from Frank's post...

Okay,

both attached renders are with TGOs.
The colourful is with the above shown Powerfractal.
The reddish and black Bots are rendered with a Get position node inside the Parts-shader.

!!??!!!

I think, that I need one of those objects you used for your tests, as with mine everything is just the way, I expect it.

Volker

You have the 'get' inside the actual parts shader? I experience many trace-ray errors and black render outputs doing this, as Frank said, aswell.

[dandelO]

Ulco, using the 'get pos in tex' should make it work with a fractal, I'm almost sure.
I remember a while ago, I could not get a power fractal to bend with a warp shader when I just used a 'get position'...

[Dune]

I'll try that...

[dandelO]

Me too, playing just now...

[Volker Harun]

Okay, as I am not allowed to post this trafficBot object, I'll build a new object and will post the whole scene as TGD.

It might render fine on my machine, as I am using a Mac!?!

@Dune ... for those who might follow us in a few years ... can you put the link to FrankB's thread into your first post as reference!?!

thx
Volker

[dandelO]

It really looks to be as simple as this, after all;

[attachimg=#]

A 'get position in texture', input to a default fractal that is set at the top-level affects only the leaves.
God-damn! One extra node is all it has ever taken to make a fractal work for this! Bang head repeatedly off of wall!

It seems to be still applied to object-space, not world-space this way, sorry. Getting my hopes up prematurely there! ^^  

[Dune]

I couldn't get it to work either. A stack and mix of functional perlins works quite well, IMO, until someone finds the ultimate solution. I did another test and used the color function input of the default shader(s) to stick the tgc in. That works as well for variation without added color.

[Volker Harun]

You can get the scene-file with object over here: http://www.rx-optimal.de/TG2/MiniBotScene.rar

Which objects do you use?

[dandelO]

Same here. It appears Volker has it working with fractals on page 4 of Frank's image post. I can't see where the 'get' node is, though. Apparently inside the parts shader but I can't see where. It must be contained inside another node in there because, what I'm finding is, when the 'get' node and functions are inside another container node(whilst in the parts shader), there are no traceray errors. Take the functions out of the container node, however, and place them straight into the parts shader on their own, kaboom!

[dandelO]

I'm using a fantastic tree model that I made for simple testing purposes...

[attachimg=#]

.obj

[Volker Harun]

I can't see where the 'get' node is, though. Apparently inside the parts shader but I can't see where. It must be contained inside another node ...

In that scene I did not use any Get node ...

[Hetzen]

Just trying your scene, and it doesn't seem to work...

Hrmm.

I'm getting bucket errors.

[Volker Harun]

I am going to try the scene on my windows machine ... with Mac, everything is fine.

[Hetzen]

I'm Windows based, so this maybe the problem, and hopefully an upcoming solution, because this would be awesome to get to work.