Metaballs

[Ekenryd]

Have you removed metaballs in a later build? Iḿ 99% certain I found and tried them about a month ago through the vray create menu, but now I can't find them anymore.

[vlado]

They were still there last time I checked. They are only in the nightly builds though, not in the stable ones.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ALFRED_ST_MEDIA]

having fun with the metaballs. working great, but I don't seem to get them in RT. Still to come, or am I missing something?

Thanks.

-ctj

[ivan.ivanov]

Hi,
The Metaballs are not currently supported by RT, but will be added.

Ivan Ivanov

[alainfx]

Hello,

They were still there last time I checked. They are only in the nightly builds though, not in the stable ones.

Do you know when metaballs will be added to the stable builds ?
I checked the release notes for the latest version (build 22029 from yesterday), and I don't see anything about metaballs.
Cheers.

[ilpvfx]

I noticed the folder ./vray_geommetaball in the samples/vray_plugins folder in the latest nightly, although there was only a make file there. Any chance of the source code showing up in the next build?

/Eric

[vlado]

I can send you the source code privately if you email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com; I don't want to include it in the builds just yet.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ilpvfx]

I can send you the source code privately if you email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com; I don't want to include it in the builds just yet.

Best regards,
Vlado

thanks vlado, sent you a mail!

/Eric

[alainfx]

having fun with the metaballs.

Hi,
Do you use a "nightly" nightly build, or a "stable" nightly build ?
Neither of their Release notes include Metaballs, so I don't know if it's available in the current "stable" nightly build.

[vlado]

Neither of their Release notes include Metaballs, so I don't know if it's available in the current "stable" nightly build.

No, it's not in the stable builds, and will probably not be there for a while longer - otherwise they might automatically cease to be "stable"

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

Thanks Vlado.

[alainfx]

Hi,

I installed the latest nightly, to test the Metaballs, and found it only works with particles (it crashes maya if you render while the positive set includes a geometry or a locator).

Is it scheduled to add locators to the supported types ? (I guess it's not more difficult than particles).
And poly mesh ? (ok, that one is probably a lot more difficult).

Sometimes it's easier to setup locators than particles (you could get a metaball between 3 cream drops using simple keyframes).

Cheers.

[vlado]

For the moment we don't plan to support locators or other geometry; you'll have to make the particles go in those locations (f.e. by distributing the particles on the surface of the geometry).

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

For the moment we don't plan to support locators or other geometry; you'll have to make the particles go in those locations (f.e. by distributing the particles on the surface of the geometry).

Thank you.
I have written scripts to constrain particles to locators positions, but it's not ideal.

Do you plan to have the particle's radiusPP attribute control the radius of each blobby element ?
It would be very useful.
EDIT : sorry, I didn't saw there is a "Use particle size" switch, it works all right.

Also, on the area that joins 2 particles, there is a visible band (see picture below).
Is it something that I can avoid by tweaking the shading ?
(maybe it's just how blobby should be, I'm not sure)


Thanks.