How to make geometry particles follow the normals of the surface

[Dave Buckley]

i'm trying to distribute some thin tubes around a sphere, but I want them to follow the normals of the sphere.

 

and I'm not too sure what I need to be doing to get it to happen, i've attached an image to show where i'm currently at.

 

the tubes need to be flat-ish to the surface

 

almost as if i want to be able to align the tube face to the sphere rather than the tube pivot

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Looks like you're on the right track. Just whipped up a copy myself, screencap attached. Can't spend time now analyzing and explaining and testing variants, but you're close enough I think this should do the trick.

[mattclinch]

you're nearly there.

 

i see you are already using a "speed by surface", so assuming you have the surface geometry that you are sticking them to (or flinging them from) chosen with the direction set to "parallel to surface", you simply need to set the rotation to "speed space" which it looks like you already have.

[mattclinch]

damn, too slow. that'll teach me to make a coffee whilst in the middle of a reply.

[Dave Buckley]

cheers guys, stupid me had forgotten to choose the sphere in the speed by surface operator.

 

my next problem however is how to get the sphere completely covered without any of the tubes overlapping

[Dave Buckley]

i thought i needed to use the 'keep apart' operator but I can't work out how to control it properly.

[mattclinch]

i've had to do the very same thing you are doing before. i think in the end i used a geosphere and scattered by vertex.

[Dave Buckley]

Kind of works but the tubes are of varying scale. I'll figure it out. Cheers for help