DP Instancer

[Jure]

DP Instancer and DP Instance distribution modes are the same
and documented on my site.



Can't see this mode in the LW Instance Generator,
should be a request for the native instancing system.

Denis.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough: I did read documentation on your website. But i'm still confused on how it works. For example there is no explanation on how different distr. types compare (Block, Sphere, Plane Cylindircal, Cone...)

About wireframe color: I'm attaching screnshot of native generator - that's what I miss in your plugin (which, is awesome anyways! )

[akademus]

How does one reveal instances with an image map. I have a b/w image sequence I want to use to reveal (but not to pop) a whole bunch of stones on a road?

[dpont]

...About wireframe color: I'm attaching screnshot of native generator

Same behavior than DP Instance,
wireframe color is defined by the Reference,
that's the way to modify it.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough: I did read documentation on your website. But i'm still confused on how it works. For example there is no explanation on how different distr. types compare (Block, Sphere, Plane Cylindircal, Cone...)

About the Distribution node,
yes I described mainly the differences about the uniformity
between grid, random, etc,
it works with the panel "Instance Position" set to Pivot
since this distribution is not tied to the object geometry,
Block, Sphere just defines the shape in the scene space,
Sphere, Cylindrical.. are wrapped surfaces,
but Block is a rough 3D volume which can be clipped.

Denis.

Denis.

[dpont]

How does one reveal instances with an image map. I have a b/w image sequence I want to use to reveal (but not to pop) a whole bunch of stones on a road?

I would go in the node editor,
using an Image node plugged in the "Enable State" input.

Denis.

[akademus]

I would go in the node editor,
using an Image node plugged in the "Enable State" input.

Denis.

Did that, but they are still popping and jittery like mad

I don't really get how masking in Distribution node works!?

[Jure]

Same behavior than DP Instance,
wireframe color is defined by the Reference,
that's the way to modify it.

Yes, this much I understand. However in LW the color can be overriden inside Instance Generator. I don't see such option in DP Instancer.

[dpont]

Did that, but they are still popping and jittery like mad

I don't really get how masking in Distribution node works!?

I can't see your video here, got an error,
for looking at your settings, I prefer content.
if you are using the Distribution node, Enable state input
is not the way, so Mask input is the way but depends
of the setup.

Denis.

[dpont]

Yes, this much I understand. However in LW the color can be overriden inside Instance Generator. I don't see such option in DP Instancer.

DP Instancer is not LW Generator,
I try to limit new options per instancer
for minor interest, this has a cost, even if it is not used
when setting multi-instancers.

Denis.

[akademus]

I can't see your video here, got an error,
for looking at your settings, I prefer content.
if you are using the Distribution node, Enable state input
is not the way, so Mask input is the way but depends
of the setup.

Denis.

I uploaded the content. What I'm strugling to achieve is to get the stones revealed by an animated map but stone by stone. And possible to have this same animated map scaling them down on Y axis also stone by stone.

[dpont]

I uploaded the content. What I'm strugling to achieve is to get the stones revealed by an animated map but stone by stone. And possible to have this same animated map scaling them down on Y axis also stone by stone.

I can't see jittering or popping here,
may be because your scene is terribly slow
on my limited configuration,
Indeed a mask for revealing is not a smooth effect,
I suppose that growing the instances could be achieved
by moving a gradient or an equivalent with image sequence,
then input it in the Y component
of a Make Vector node to get a scaling vector.

Denis.

[Iaian7]

Good idea Denis! You could also use the Y vector to simply drop the items below the surface, then move them up (revealing the objects via intersection). Should have fewer issues with super-thin objects still showing up, and so long as your image sequence has a soft edge, the reveal will be pretty smooth.

[Jure]

Denis,

one more thing I miss from your instancer: it's the ability to limit instances to specific surface name in "surface mode". Is this something you are planning to add? Oh and how about multithreading the generation of instances?

[dpont]

...one more thing I miss from your instancer: it's the ability to limit instances to specific surface name in "surface mode". Is this something you are planning to add?

More options? What for? Too lazy to add a weight map?

...how about multithreading the generation of instances?

Do you think, that the LW Generator is multithreaded?
..And you know distribution is complex, I doubt really
that relaxing point could be multithreaded, or even if this is
possible for some part, this involves more memory,
also I'm single core, how could I test this, I'm not crazy.

Denis.

[Jure]

More options? What for? Too lazy to add a weight map?

Yep! You know what they say "laziness is the mother of invention"...

Do you think, that the LW Generator is multithreaded?
..And you know distribution is complex, I doubt really
that relaxing point could be multithreaded, or even if this is
possible for some part, this involved more memory,
also I'm single core, how could I test this, I'm not crazy.

Denis.

Yeah I know, it's just that it gets quite slow when you to distribute more than 100.000 instances...

[dpont]

As I said before, I tried from the beginning of this
development to limit the memory used per instancer,
so a weight map is far more adapted to the situation
than Surface name, this allows to vary the density
per polygon, also a full surface mapping would be
useless for this kind of process, it is more suitable for
masking the resulted distribution in the node editor,
knowing that masked (disabled state) instances aren't
stored at all in memory.

The actual Surface mode in DP Instancer is accelerated
in its main process, not brute force, also this process
is optimized for uniformity, so the relaxation is fast as
a last refinement, if you compare the 2D Poisson Disc
in the distribution node ("Distanced.." modes) it is accurate
in a free space not on the geometry, you could verify that is slower,
with just an axis projection mapping, if it was fully 3D mapped like the Surface mode the "distanced" uniformity would be ruined,
more relaxation steps should be added to 'rebuild' its uniformity,
and the instance distance no more accurate.

Denis.