Generative Components in 3ds

[jonahhawk]

Anyone know of a good tool or script to array a component across a surface, deforming/tapering the sides to prevent interference etc?

I just tried the Paneling Tools for Rhino, they are pretty nice but not parametric enough... yet. I"m sure if I learned rhino script and grasshopper it would help.

But I would like something like this for max. Build a surface of quads and replace every poly with a component. Deformed by the average normals of the neighboring polies i suppose...

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Markets.../more_info.htm
http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.as...gExamples.html

[steveblake]

...this any good?

SlideKnit: http://slidelondon.com/iv

"This tool can help you lay things out on the surface of complex objects which have been UV-mapped.For example, you could craft an intricately-detailed knit-pattern mesh in a flat plane, then wrap this around a sweater-shaped mesh."

http://slidelondon.com/_downloads/SlideKnit.zip

might get you 90% there.

[jonahhawk]

no.... unless i'm missing something, that doesn't seem to help. It just takes the surface mesh, flattens and unwraps it according to the UVs. It then adds a Morpher mod to wrap the mesh back to the original form. I don't see how this would work with what I'm looking for but thanks for the tip. This could be a useful script.

I want to take a small, individual component, (or a list of components) and array them across a surface; where each component would fit in the bounds of each surface poly.

[peterguthrie]

don't know of anything similar for max, and I'm not familiar enough with maxscript to have tried anything in max, but I have been messing around with panelingtools and grasshopper: http://ncodon.wordpress.com/

Grasshopper is a great plugin, and fairly easy to learn. Should even be possible to combine panelingtools and grasshopper if you know a bit of VBscript.

There are some good tutorials on designreform.net on using 3dsmax in a parametric way, but you can only really go so far.. worth a look though.

[jonahhawk]

Yeah, that's where I got excited, using the paneling plug-in for rhino. But it is a memory hog with complex panel shapes. A friend of mine just bought GEM from paracloud and says he has had a lot of success.

I'm a floundering noob of a max scriptor. I've watched several MaxScript DVDs repeatedly and a lot of it is sinking in slowly. I know there has to be a way of deforming a panel using the averaged normals of a polygon. I'll float over to CGTalk and see if I can hook Bobo on the subject.