Chaos Scatter: convert to geometry? Light linking?

[hermann_fuchs]

Hi there,

I'm wondering if there's a way to convert objects scattered with the new Chaos Scatter to geometry? (I'm using Maya 2024 with VRay 6) I know there's a way to do this in 3dsMax, but I haven't found anything like it in Maya so far.
Also, is there a way to use Chaos Scatter objects together with light linking?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[hermit.crab]

There's currently no way of converting the scatter into geometry in Maya, I'm afraid. As to light-linking - have you tried unlinking a given light from the source/scattered objects? Seems to me that this is what you're going for.

[hermann_fuchs]

I just tested your solution for handling the light-linking and it works perfectly! As for converting the scatter to geometry, here's hoping it will be added in the next release
Thank you for your help!

[hermit.crab]

FYI: We've logged an improvement request for converting ChaosScatter to Maya geometry (internal bug-tracker id: VMAYA-12349)

[Mihail.Djurev]

Hi!

Can you share more details about your use case?
How are you going to manipulate the objects after are converted from Scatter? Maye it is a feature that we could add to Scatter itself?

[hermann_fuchs]

Hello,

hermit.crab Thanks for the follow-up, that's great to hear!
Mihail.Djurev Sure! A bit of context: I used Chaos Scatter to distribute many pencil meshes along the surface of an animal basemesh, with the goal of obtaining a realistic result for an ad. It was important to me that it looks like a real sculpture made from all these little parts, so I tried to avoid clipping as much as possible. Due to the more complex shapes of that surface, the avoid collisions option didn't work well in every place of the mesh because in order to prevent overlapping, I had to sometimes raise the spacing to a level where it was not dense enough anymore. My thinking behind a convert to geometry feature was then to keep the density high and be able to manually delete/move certain problematic scatter objects as needed.

[SonyBoy]

Hi!

Can you share more details about your use case?
How are you going to manipulate the objects after are converted from Scatter? Maye it is a feature that we could add to Scatter itself?

In addition to the detailed and specific explanation above, I'd just like to add that it's ALWAYS desirable to be able to convert any kind of instancing/procedural placement of objects for any number of use-specific reasons. There are always going to be problematic individuals and areas. Even Golaem allows for groups of animated entities to be moved/hidden for this reason. Strange that this needs explaining.

[seandunderdale]

I totally agree with always having the options to convert to a Maya poly mesh. It often is the backup for debugging renders, or when clients need something extra fine tuned, as in the case mentioned. Being able to convert to a mesh and then delete or manipulate bits as standard maya geo, is always nice to have in your back pocket, as a fail safe.