I'm working on a “Tron-Legacy/Matrix” type of environment, and I'm trying to have particles emitting from the base of my objects moving upward following this “circuit board” type of patterns (see attached pic). If anyone could please put me on the right path, or point at a similar set up i could sink my teeth in please?

I am not looking for a SOP solution with some carve node animation like this example (https://vimeo.com/203101813) even though it is pretty neat, but truly POPnet particles changing directions.

Thanks in advance,

A.

I am currently in Lisbon so I think you'll read this on your tomorrow but anyway:

if your quest is having points/particles following a predefined path then you might be better off using sops method actually.

I am no H-guru by any mean but from my experience, to have that geometric path being used as a path in POPs you'd probably have to dive heavily into VEX inside a POP-wrangle. But even then I doubt you would get anything really controllable, especially if you want to have the ability to alter your pattern and have everything still following the paths. Plus I think the speed of such POP sim wouldn't be ideal (I could be wrong here).

So I've made a simple and quick setup which creates a super easy pattern and extracts points form each line. The rest is the magic of carve+modulo.

Hope it helps

Sort of works, might give you some ideas…

Cristotek
I am currently in Lisbon so I think you'll read this on your tomorrow but anyway:

if your quest is having points/particles following a predefined path then you might be better off using sops method actually.

I am no H-guru by any mean but from my experience, to have that geometric path being used as a path in POPs you'd probably have to dive heavily into VEX inside a POP-wrangle. But even then I doubt you would get anything really controllable, especially if you want to have the ability to alter your pattern and have everything still following the paths. Plus I think the speed of such POP sim wouldn't be ideal (I could be wrong here).

So I've made a simple and quick setup which creates a super easy pattern and extracts points form each line. The rest is the magic of carve+modulo.

Hope it helps

Thanks a lot Christotek, much appreciated that you dug into the topic. I like that neat stuff you did to loop the carve node aniamtion, first time i see that one. But like i mentioned in my post i really am not after a SOP approach, mostly because i already have quite an intricate set up which is a derived implementation of “Ben”'s particle patterns work (https://vimeo.com/244035351). Very interesting stuff which i'm trying really heard to completely translate to POPs. I'm half way there already. Thanks a Lot again though.

Cheers,

A.

mestela
Sort of works, might give you some ideas…

Bingo Mestela, it's what i'm after. I tweaked a few things around to have it follow the surface of a geo and added a couple of tweaks. However, when doing so i lost the proper use of your pop replicate somehow, it kinda stopped working. So i added a SOP trail to make it work, but not really my ideal choice.

Thanks for your code, it's really the core of what i was looking for. I realize also now that it only applies to a single XY axis, need to find a way to make it detect the best axis depending on the normals of the object.

Cheers,

A.

Fixed the turns to happen relative to the source geo (it looks up the normal from the closest point on the sphere, and uses that as the axis for rotation).

Also got the pop replicate working again, and fixed a thing that stopped the lines building cleanly.

mestela
Fixed the turns to happen relative to the source geo (it looks up the normal from the closest point on the sphere, and uses that as the axis for rotation).

Also got the pop replicate working again, and fixed a thing that stopped the lines building cleanly.

Awesome stuff, mestela. I think you pretty much nailed it all in there. I don't see what else to be added. Very functional set up.


Cheers,

A.

mestela
Sort of works, might give you some ideas…

There you go, “magic Matt” just gave you what I think you were really after then!

Adriano

Cristotek
I am currently in Lisbon so I think you'll read this on your tomorrow but anyway:

if your quest is having points/particles following a predefined path then you might be better off using sops method actually.

I am no H-guru by any mean but from my experience, to have that geometric path being used as a path in POPs you'd probably have to dive heavily into VEX inside a POP-wrangle. But even then I doubt you would get anything really controllable, especially if you want to have the ability to alter your pattern and have everything still following the paths. Plus I think the speed of such POP sim wouldn't be ideal (I could be wrong here).

So I've made a simple and quick setup which creates a super easy pattern and extracts points form each line. The rest is the magic of carve+modulo.

Hope it helps

Thanks a lot Christotek, much appreciated that you dug into the topic

You are welcome even if I didn't help much eheh…
Happy you found a solution in the end, and pretty neat result too!
Keep us posted on the final outcome if you can!

Cristotek
You are welcome even if I didn't help much eheh…
Happy you found a solution in the end, and pretty neat result too!
Keep us posted on the final outcome if you can!

For sure, will do. And you did help, I can promise you that i'm going to reuse that neat loop thingy for the carve node Love it. The reasons i'm looking into this Tron-ish / Matrix kinda stuff is to bring something dynamic to environments and assets i'm building for VJ material for a Festival coming up soon. This set up is pretty cool and for sure i want to use it for some elements. So “Magic-Matt” i'll have to share the credits with you for that bit. And also with more people as i'm really into this kinda stuff as well -> https://vimeo.com/244035351 [vimeo.com] and trying really hard to find make sense of the set up Ben is so generous to share with the rest of the world. I posted about it in an other thread, If you guys feel like having a look at it you'd be more than welcome. Something tells me you'd probably make sense of the issues i have with it quicker than i would. I've been banging my head against it for about 2 days now :$ https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/55056/ [www.sidefx.com]

Thanks again for helping (aka doing it all for me on this one, Matt :$)

Cheers,

A.