Multiple Maya Scatter nodes

[stezza]

Simple question is it usual procedure to use more than one scatter node per object?
The list gets so long and a real pain to edit the frequency number.

I have 6 plants with 10 variants each, so best to use 6 or 3 scatter nodes.?

Cheers

[Morbid Angel]

The whole ui isn't ideal when dealing with multiple objects. I can't remember but I think the multiple scatters will not respect each other for collision if that matters so that would be a drawback in my opinion. I think when dealing with many items like that you should rule them by a script of some sort rather than by hand.

[hermit.crab]

FYI, we have an improvement request logged to adjust the frequency of multiple objects (internal tracker ID: SCATTER-96). A 3ds Max user had a similar complaint, and I wrote him a script to mass-edit model frequencies, alas, I'm not that experienced in MEL script. Otherwise, I've forwarded it to the Scatter team, and it will be taken care of along with some other changes.

[petya.georgieva]

Hi
You can use multiple scatter nodes on one target but unfortunately as Dmitry pointed out, they're different scattering systems and they won't respect each other when using avoid collision, areas or other settings. You'd also have to adjust the other settings per each scatter object.

Is the mass frequency edit option that was suggested above a suitable solution for you which would make the UI better? Do you have other suggestions that would make the UI better for cases like this?

In the meantime here's two mel script suggestions, which you can edit to suit your scene

This will edit all objects from 0 to 6 to have the frequency of 0.5

for ($i = 0; $i <= 6; $i++)
{
string $attribute = "ChaosScatterShape1.models[" + $i + "].modelFrequencies";
setAttr $attribute 0.5;
}

And same principle but for specific object numbers in the list:

​for ($i in {1, 3, 0})
{
string $attribute = "ChaosScatterShape1.models[" + $i + "].modelFrequencies";
setAttr $attribute 0.2;
}