Duck? Duck? ...........Duck?

[luvsmuzik]

Air traffic control......

playing with population object rotation. I know....vary the object. I shall make a group of different poses...

[Agura Nata]

nice work, the ducks surf

[luvsmuzik]

nice work, the ducks surf

Haha! Yes....if only I could get the splash effect as they all land in a flurry!  I have watched them come into ponds or lakes in the evening or early morning in a group and love to see this.

[Agura Nata]

nice work, the ducks surf

Haha! Yes....if only I could get the splash effect as they all land in a flurry!  I have watched them come into ponds or lakes in the evening or early morning in a group and love to see this.

Do I believe you, still have a great week! 

[luvsmuzik]

nice work, the ducks surf

Because you use Blender.....do you suppose a beginner modeler could apply the lapacian modifer to this obj? It is one simple sphere basically subdivided and extruded, simple geometry, with subdivided surface applied. I want to bend the neck, etc. I have not tried to add any armature or bones.

Simple object edit is giving me some funny ridges...hard to hook the vertices, even in wire frame.....I should just start over and make a separate duck. Ha!

[luvsmuzik]

Edited the duck (goose?)...raised the landing gear. etc.

• Grass7, Thank you!
  My Blender tree
  Apply slope constraint (max 6, fuzzy 2) on 3 FSS surface layer (also very small), to allow green base color to show through
  Default fractal terrain with lake water shader

Now the question: I have fiddled with this bird pop forever. Is there a secret when decreasing or increasing increments, like make a,b odd rather than even....to avoid spacing too close?

[masonspappy]

Now the question: I have fiddled with this bird pop forever. Is there a secret when decreasing or increasing increments, like make a,b odd rather than even....to avoid spacing too close?

So if you're asking what I think your asking, the parameter highlighted in attached image would control spacing between  objects in a population. 

[luvsmuzik]

Thanks @ masonpappy! That is the area I was talking about. I have my spacing good in general, but some ducks are about to collide. Just read about the editing tab, in Dune's post today and just tried moving a few of them, it worked!  I was afraid to try that or thought I might have to make some magic mask.....way over my head!

[bobbystahr]

Thanks @ masonpappy! That is the area I was talking about. I have my spacing good in general, but some ducks are about to collide. Just read about the editing tab, in Dune's post today and just tried moving a few of them, it worked!  I was afraid to try that or thought I might have to make some magic mask.....way over my head!

I think this was suggested in another thread but to fix collisions use the Object Edit which you can access from the 2 cubes next to the measure ruler above the 3D Preview window. Click, select your ducks and mouse over the ones that need moving. When the one you want highlights click it and you get the navigation widget and you can move, rotate, and scale with that.

[luvsmuzik]

Thanks @ masonpappy! That is the area I was talking about. I have my spacing good in general, but some ducks are about to collide. Just read about the editing tab, in Dune's post today and just tried moving a few of them, it worked!  I was afraid to try that or thought I might have to make some magic mask.....way over my head!

I think this was suggested in another thread but to fix collisions use the Object Edit which you can access from the 2 cubes next to the measure ruler above the 3D Preview window. Click, select your ducks and mouse over the ones that need moving. When the one you want highlights click it and you get the navigation widget and you can move, rotate, and scale with that.

I cannot tell you how dumb I feel. First about a month ago I find view objects as .....now this! Ha! I had used some other programs (Forester....camera path editor....and a few others) so I figured objects in TG would be a piece of cake, but I gave up sort of a few years back because I couldn't wait for the pre-rendering window. I don't suppose I was bogging my pc down by trying to use TG and surf for free stuff, download free stuff, try to edit it.....ha ha ha ha...maxing out my unit. I can still only do what I can but at least now it could be easier!

Went back to old school here and put noise on the far hills for fake fall tree colors. I can now finally relate how this is done now as opposed to how it was done a hundred years ago, before objects came to town. Remember our bw noise maps in preview?

[bobbystahr]

Heh heh, we all have those moments...nice work on the 'fake trees' effect....

[DocCharly65]

...what bobby said 

Some additional suggestion:
If you divide your duck population into eg. 3 populations and give the duck object a different rotation and color variation they might look less monotonous.
(I don't know if the flight direction is x or y in your case but I think you know what I mean - NOT Y  )

[Dune]

If you sit the flying ducks on a PF, and add a compute normal, you can have them rotated with that (displaced) PF, and give them different angles.

[luvsmuzik]

Thanks everyone!
@BobbyStahr...I am still trying to figure if that vary colour clip you told me about would adjust the leaf color on a single tree object. I might play with that a bit. I have seen some clips with multipy this, ...xyz that....etc...haha...(nervous laughter)

@DocCharley...yep, I forgot to adjust the scale before render again. I got so excited about the pop edit and all. I have a shader to make the wing tips black and I should try that out I suppose, then they are more like geese maybe. Remember 3 is the object limit for me, but I am thinking up a couple of work-arounds on that one.

@Dune...So the PF and compute normal (without colors?) would make the fowl ride an invisible wave, sort of?  Any anchoring change? They are free floating now, I think.

[Dune]

Check out file sharing....