How Control exact population number ? TG3

[mathieubr]

Hi!
For a project I am doing I need to control the exact number of instances in a population. Seems like TG only allows to control size/spacing of population, and not the exact number of instances. Am I wrong? Is there a way to do this?
Thanks in advance

[Dune]

I think that will be hard. If you can get close to the required number by changing the spacing, or a fractal, or even a constant gray as mask, you might edit the remaining instances away.

[jo]

Hi,

There isn't any way to do it directly. However there are some ways to achieve it. First you would need to try an appropriate spacing and size to give the highest closest number. You need to go for the highest closest number because you can take away instances but not add them. You could then edit the population to remove extra instances. The most precise way is to delete instances using the instance editing. To remove a bunch of instances at once it might be easiest to use Simple shape shaders as density shaders. You could also use a Painted shader. In both cases you would want to either invert the distribution shaders of set the colour of the shaders to black (i.e. paint black with the Painted shader).

The Editing tab of the Populator v4 displays the total number of instances. If you add a density shader and repopulate then the the Total instances value shown in the Editing tab will show you an accurate count of how many instances are in the population. If you are deleting instances by editing the population then you'll need to take the number of deleted instances away from total instances to get the right count.

You should check out the docs if you haven't already:

Populator v4 Node
http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Populator_v4

Populator guide
http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Populator_Guide

Regards,

Jo