filling a 3d model with coins

[flipside]

Hi,

I need to fill a 3d model with coins, in other words I have to build a model entirely made out of coins.

I tried with scatter, area and volume option.

area:


volume (doesn't seem to work very well... but this is what I need, the area option doesn't fill the model)


Now I wondered if there are other ways of doing this, with options for collision detection because I need to do close ups too and no coins should intersect...

Thanks for any tips!

wouter

[joconnell]

Reactor or simcloth - put them all inside an object and let them settle and drop - you should be able to do it with tiny collision tolerances. Pflow has a volume option in the position object operator so you can fill a volume up. It should give you more options about rotation and so on than the scatter object will but it might be a bit memory intensive - no dynamics either :/

[flipside]

Ok thanks! Played with the pflow position object, works quite well and the seperator value helps to get rid of intersections. In fact I need relatively large gaps between each coin to be able to fly trough it with a camera. So this seems to work well for me!

But then I have a new question. Is there a way to delete particles manually, some of them are in wrong positions. Or can I convert the whole coin model into seperate coins so I can delete them (maybe impossible since the final model will have a massive amount of coins...).

Thanks joconnel for the quick reply

wouter

[rivoli]

Is there a way to delete particles manually, some of them are in wrong positions.

you can go in the modify panel of your pf source, under selection enable particle, and pick the particles you want to delete (this will create a selection set with all selected particles).
then go back to your flow, add a delete operator, and have it remove only selected particles.

[flipside]

Thanks, that works in a strange way. If I select 10 particles, they go away, but all the rest gets reorganised and as a result, some particles again end up in the region I just selected. Guess it's due to the random positioning of the particles inside the volume. I have set everything to show 100% of the particles, so it's not simply the viewport that doesn't show all particles.

Is there a way to convert a particle system to a mesh?

[rivoli]

weird, it works as it should here. each selected and deleted particle doesn't affect the position of the other ones. in fact, if you clear them from the selection, they just pop up again exactly where they were.

[rivoli]

on a second thought, I guess you might get something like that if the delete operator is not at the very bottom of your flow, or just above the display one, or below the rotation one anyway (if you're using one).

[flipside]

It seems to be related to the "separation" option in the position object operator. If I turn that off, the removal indeed works as expected.

But the separation is pretty important to get rid of most of the intersecting coins...

[joconnell]

I have a baking script here that'll output to nulls and another script to swap the two - it's only for max 8 at the moment though :/

Alternatively if they dont have to move, snapshot everything to a mesh and delete by element.

[flipside]

Not sure what you mean with the scripts But I'm on max 9...

Ah snapshot, that's what I meant Think I will get there with a combination of pflow settings and then manual editing the snapshot!

thanks!

[jacksc02]

there are a few pflow to mesh scripts around. Do a search in google

[charleyc]

You can simply use Mesher to create a Mesh of the flow and delete elements as desired.

[DaForce]

Yeah I found a script on Bobo's site I think.. it was a for a couple of version previous of max but works like a charm in max8-9.

If you want I can post it.

[re:FORM]

Haha.... I had this very same problem a few months ago... a client wanted me to fill a giant glass christmas bauble with coins....

In the end I had to do about 25 coins at a time in reactor (to do them all caused reactor to pass out). Once the 25 coins have settled, collapse the mesh into one object, add another 25 coins, run reactor again (the collapsed mash now being a fixed object)... rinse and repeat a few hundred times.... (a six-pack helps relieve the boardom.... although so maxscript might have been a more productive approach.

[flipside]

Yeah but the coins should be placed further away from each other, and not rotated that much. Also it will be a statue made out of coins instead of a spherical or box like shape.

What is the difference between snapshot and a script to turn the pflow into a mesh?