[Bf-committers] Proposed Noise Modifier

patrick boelens p_boelens at msn.com
Mon Feb 17 19:33:28 CET 2014


Whoops, I accidentally mailed Thomas directly instead of the mailing list. Here's the forwarded conversation with some of our views on this.

Cheers,
Patrick

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:37:00 +0100
Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] Proposed Noise Modifier
From: software at plasmasolutions.de
To: p_boelens at msn.com

Oh Hey Patrick,

I didn't noticed that you were answering my mail directly...thought you answered in the ML....

I
 second your thoughts about the displacement by texture vs by range... 
but I also really like the possibility to have a mod that looks for 
loose parts and then randomizes them - that really opens up a whole 
world of new possibilities for mograph and other animations. Apart from 
it being useful in modeling too.


I would go with your solution of letting the array modifier 
handle it by himself and I would love to see a much improved array 
modifier - but I feel that it's nevertheless useful to have a dedicated 
noise modifier there too. Both have their use cases so if you ask me I 
would vote for both...


Many greetings, Thomas


2014-02-16 22:33 GMT+01:00 patrick boelens <p_boelens at msn.com>:




Iirc there was another discussion here a while ago 
about randomizing array instances. I feel like that would be more of a 
separate issue than displacement by texture VS displacement by range.

In
 the case of array modifiers, perhaps we could implement an "offset 
range" to be applied per axis per instance, with reference to it's 
"original instance position". To then prevent this randomized array to 
be perfectly duplicated when applying a second array modifier -which I 
think was the main problem with a similar solution in the other 
discussion- we could add an additional toggle to either pass the 
"normally positioned" or the "randomized" mesh to the next modifier in 
the stack. I'm not sure how well this scales across the board, but it 
seems like this is a problem that needs to be fixed at the array 
modifier level, as it is such a specific use-case.


I agree with Campbell that vertex displacement would probably be 
better suited as a displacement modifier option. From an artist p.o.v., 
displacement is displacement is displacement; just different variations 
of it. =)


As for the "along normal" displacement, isn't that the same as an entirely white texture/ not using a texture at all?

Cheers,
Patrick

> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 15:35:13 +0000
> From: metalliandy666 at googlemail.com
> To: bf-committers at blender.org
> Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] Proposed Noise Modifier
> 
> The reason I am such a big fan of modifiers is that they are 
> non-destructive. Because Blender doesn't have an edit poly modifier like 
> Max artists are required to make more permanent changes or to duplicate 
> meshes in the scene in order to create a soft save point.
> 
> Currently the disp+texture workflow is very poor and require too much 
> swapping between panels in order to get what is actually a very simple 
> function. It's overly convaluted, especially to new users and more 
> experienced users coming from other 3d software. I'm just trying to 
> bridge the gap for those people and create a more efficient Blender in 
> the process.
> 
> If you think the Blender modifier list is long you should check out the 
> amount that max has ;)
> http://www.3dmax-tutorials.com/List_of_Available_Modifiers.html
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -Andy
> 
> On 17/02/2014 14:39, Greg Zaal wrote:
> > Just my 2 cents:
> >
> > "Displacement" in terms of the English definition means "the action of
> > moving something from its place or position".
> >
> > While I know that in CG terms it refers to individual vertex displacement
> > using some texture to give detail or randomness to a mesh, the English
> > definition would still describe this new function of displacing the
> > instance as a whole. I think it would be most intuitive to join the
> > proposed modifier with the Displacement modifier as Campbell suggested,
> > with a Constant/Texture/Noise enum. And unless I'm misunderstanding, I
> > don't really see the point of the vertex noise idea - just use a small
> > colour noise texture with the displacement modifier set to RGB>XYZ (though
> > perhaps this textureless way is much faster?)
> >
> > Plus the modifier list is long enough already :)
> >
> > Cheers (and thanks for this great feature!)
> > Greg Zaal
> >
> >
> > On 17 February 2014 16:20, Jonathan Williamson <jonathan at cgcookie.com>wrote:
> >
> >> I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, except that I think the
> >> proposed and existing functionality and both very important to have.
> >>
> >> I have not tested the patch yet, but from the descriptions it seems to me
> >> that the proposed Noise modifier is really Mesh Noise + Object Offset.
> >>
> >> The Object Offset (via the Whole Mesh Mode) is really beneficial when
> >> arraying objects and is something we've not be able to do before. Am I
> >> correct in thinking it can offset object instances within an array?
> >>
> >> Jonathan Williamson
> >> http://cgcookie.com
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Thomas Beck <software at plasmasolutions.de
> >>> wrote:
> >>> Hi Patrice,
> >>>
> >>> I find your modifier very useful and needed! Every time when we are
> >> working
> >>> here in the studio with array modifiers we have the same problem:
> >>> Randomizing those perfectly aligned clones. We are at the moment using a
> >>> tiny little script but we would love to have it on the modifier stack.
> >>>
> >>> I agree with Campell on the other side though that when it comes to
> >>> randomizing vertices a displacement modifier is "enough" (if you could
> >> say
> >>> that as an artist...we want always more ;)) But as you clearly stated,
> >> the
> >>> two first options are more or less a by-product of your real work and I
> >>> could not see any harm on having a specialized modifier for randomizing
> >>> stuff - only possibilities.
> >>>
> >>> I'm looking forward to seeing your work improve and I'm happy that there
> >> is
> >>> some optimizing efforts going on from Campbell in the displacement mod
> >>> (that is awesome btw too).
> >>>
> >>> Good work so far! Will subscribe to the task...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> 2014-02-16 16:58 GMT+01:00 Patrice Bertrand <
> >> patrice.bertrand.eu at gmail.com
> >>>> :
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>> Keep in mind that the main goal is to add randomness to arrays of
> >> objects
> >>>> and to dedicated objects, which clearly the displacement modifier will
> >>> not
> >>>> do.  The "individual vertices" mode is just a simple by-product, like
> >>>> "while we're at it we could as well shift vertices".   When it comes to
> >>>> shifting vertices, clearly, this is very coarse, and
> >> displacement+texture
> >>>> is far more powerfull and flexible.  But overall I don't think the
> >>> proposed
> >>>> noise modifier is redundant.
> >>>> This being said, I did think of adding a 'along normal' option to the
> >>>> vertex mode, which would act a tiny bit like a displacement, albeit
> >>> without
> >>>> any of the patterns that textures allow.
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Bf-committers mailing list
> >>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
> >>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>> ------
> >>> Plasmasolutions
> >>> Design | Development | Training
> >>>
> >>> Website: Http://www.plasmasolutions.de <http://www.plasmasolutions.de/>
> >>> Blog: Http://blog.plasmasolutions.de <http://blog.plasmasolutions.de/>
> >>>
> >>> Telefon: 0176 2017 9565
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Bf-committers mailing list
> >>> Bf-committers at blender.org
> >>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Bf-committers mailing list
> >> Bf-committers at blender.org
> >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-committers mailing list
> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
 		 	   		  


More information about the Bf-committers mailing list