filling a 3d model with coins

[flipside]

Patrick, I would be interested in that coin metal material

Also, is the head etc on the coin done with bump only?

[DaForce]

Last time I tried I dont think snapshop worked at all. Hence the need for a script.

[re:FORM]

Ah, so you want them neatly stacked?

Depending on the way you want them stacked, you could try using a free plugin/script (cant remember what its called or where to find it, but scriptspot would be the place to start looking) that takes a model and slices it up to produce a series of splines at each slice. You could then use the spacing tool to evenly distribute the coins around the perimeter of each slice.
Then, for the interior coins, I guess you could try offsetting each spline by the radius of the coins, then converting to poly, then scatter the coins on the surface to the required density. This would give you a neat edge to the coin cloud, but getting the right look for the interior would be a bit more tricky.

The coin material, I think, was displaced, although I might have reverted to bump at the final push as displacement was taking too long to render... but try displacement first. Just make sure you keep the edge integrity. The metal is just a glossy reflection, but I think I excluded the coins from self reflection as again the render times were getting silly.... Sorry I cant remember the settings too well, and I dont have the models to hand to check.

I used a scanned image of a coin in the diffuse slot, not at 100%, but enough to reduce the need for a physically accurate reflection setup. I didnt want the coins looking straight out of the mint either. The end result isnt exactly photoreal, so I wasnt too pleased with it... but it served its purpose at the time.

[Da_elf]

@re:FORM you sure you only went through 1 six pack?

[flipside]

good idea, to use a map in diffuse also. I also think displacement will be crazy!

First gotta make sure this project goes trough

[flipside]

Ok I'm back with some more questions

When using scatter, there is an option to place all objects perpendicular to the surface of the distribution object. But scatter doesn't give me an option to equally space all object from each other.

So I want to use pflow which works fine (altough slower), but doens't have the perpendicular option. Any idea how I can tell the rotation controls to rotate each particle to the surface normal?

Thanks,

wouter

[charleyc]

Use a Speed by Surface Op above a Rotation set to Speed Space (or Speed Space Follow..whichever you need) and place a Stop (PFlow Tools Freebies if you have it) or a Speed Op set to 0 below that.

[EricKlein]

there's also a script called 'legolizer'...it will take any object (defaults are legos) and build another object out of them....

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/legolizer

e.

[flipside]

Thanks for all replies! I got it working relatively well. The legolizer has problems in max9, and also in 8 I can't get my own objects to work with it.

[flipside]

Suddenly my pflow doesn't want to show the particles anymore if I select ticks or dots or anything. The only thing that works is bounding box or geometry.

Could it be that I pressed some shortcut key by accident? The only way to get it working again is to start from scratch in a new file! Deleting every Pflow in the scene and then creating a new one (just for testing) doesn't work either, even with a default flow.

[DaForce]

In the display event make sure that "visible %" is on 100... obvious I know, but worth checking juuuuuuuust in case

[flipside]

Yeah I've had problems because of that setting too.

Never knew what the display problem i've had was all about. Guess it was some kind of bug. Started a new file and didn't have problems since.

Btw thanks for all the help, the project is rendering now, will post the animation when it's done