Uneven scatter for dead leaves on a plane help....

[selos69]

Hi Guys and Gals,

 

Im working on a test project (please see attached image)

 

 

 

Im trying to figure out how to scatter my leaves densely close to the building then gradually fading out the further you get away from it (eg http://www.evermotion.org/comm/ae03/RENDER_01.jpg) :confused:

 

Im not sure if the scatter tool is going to acomplish what I need?

 

Any suggestions would be most appreciated!!

 

Chris

Edited August 17, 2008 by selos69

[Chad Warner]

Try scriptspot.com, and do a serach for either "scatter" or "advanced painter" you'll find tools that allow you to paint the leaves on to the selected surface. That way, you can control the density by how much you want to paint them in.

[SandmanNinja]

Good idea!

 

I got a VERY GOOD 'painter' from http://www.3d-palace.com - it's designed for hair and fur, but works well with nuts, bolts, and rivets, and I'm sure would work well with leaves.

 

PlacementTool.ms

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Three things I can think of.

 

Scatter.

Subdivide your distribution object with smaller polys where you want more leaves. I started with a plane and used inset and tesselate. Use "instance" for the distribution object and you can go back reshuffle the geometry. For "Distribute Using" go with "Random Faces."

 

Hair&Fur WSM

I've been playing with this (http://www.greeblelicious.com/thumbnails.php?album=43) to spread buildings across the terrain. Use a map to control density. For leafing purposes a vertex paint should be excellent. Except I can't really get it to look good. Flat leaf geometry didn't show and I couldn't make standing up geometry lie down.

 

Particles (the fancy one... "Particle Flow")

The winner. Shape Instance of a leaf. Toss in some variation; Acquire Mapping; Acquire Material. Position Object; Location: Surface; Maybe some surface offset to keep the leaves from digging too much into the ground "Wow, 80% of his leaves fell off the tree and sheared right in half!"; Density By Material. Now that last one is the bit that gets you the distribution you want. I again used a vertex paint. But then I had to think... Got it. Make a Multi-Sub material. Make a dirt material (the green here). Make a generic standard material with vertex color in the diffuse channel. Assign these to 1 and 2 in the M-S. Assign the M-S to the ground. Ground renders fine as it's all 1 and the dirt is in slot 1. Back to particles and find the checkbox for "Use Sub-Material" and set that to 2. Now density picks up the vertex colors for leaf spreading about. And for the leaves: Go make a new M-S material. I put 3 subs in mine. A reddish gradient, yellow and green too. Back in PF use Material Frequency for your particles. Assign the new material to it and distribution. I went 60, 30, 10 %. Instant variety.

 

Here's a problem. I made my ground really bumpy and my rotation settings of Random Horizontal with divergence: 20 don't work. I need to stick the leaves to the ground. Gimme a few... Speed By Surface and Rotation: Speed Space Follow gets things glued down nicely. The answer may be in Spin.

 

Back at Position: Object you may want to have a look at Separation. It changes the look.

[Claudio Branch]

Advanced Painter is Free, Fast and Flexible.

 

Furthmore, it will distribute proxies while Scatter and Particle Systems will not.

[selos69]

I quickly had a play with AdvPainter and it looks like its going to do the trick.

 

Thanks very much for all suggestions guys!