Multiple paths of one Distributor

[Fei Hua]

Could a feature be added to enable multiple paths to share one Distributor.

 

Now I'm making an autumn tree, and I've noticed that although the branches are on the same level, but the leaves as sub-level have many different situations:

• Some branches still retain many leaves
• Some branches lose a lot of leaves
• Some branches have lost all their leaves

Since these branches belong to the same level, I want to use one Distributor to control the parameters of these branches. But in fact, I found this impossible in GrowFX. I had to create different Distributors and corresponding paths for them. Since there were multiple Distributors, I couldn't avoid overlapping, crossing, and distributing these branches at an Angle of 137.51 among them. 

 

Below is the method I previously implemented in PlantFactory. It provides a Random children node, which can connect to any number of sub-levels and control of the probability of each sub-level appearing. Of course, this software does not only provide this node. It also has a node that allows the sub-levels to appear in a fixed order, such as Socket 1, Socket 4, Socket 3, Socket 2, and so on, which appear in a loop. 

 

Here is my proposal: add an 'Order' node between 'Distributor' and 'Path'. Which can be set to a fixed order or a random order. All sub-levels of this node use the "Density" value of a single Distributor together, rather than each sub-level having its own "Density" value. I believe this will make it easier for us to create more natural random states.

 

[Eduard]

Hello Fei Hua,

 

Yes, I understand what you mean, and I think this feature makes sense.

 

At the moment, each Path usually needs its own Distributor, so if you want several different child states on the same level, you have to create several Distributors. As you mentioned, this can make it difficult to keep the same density, angle distribution, and avoid overlaps.

Instead of adding a separate "Random node" (as you show on your screenshot), I think it may be better to add a new mode to the Switch node. In this mode, one Distributor could be shared between several child Paths, and the Switch node would decide which Path should be used for each distributed item.

With the Switch node, you could also use a Random node to make the switching between Paths random.

 

This would make it possible to use one Distributor density value for all these child Paths, while still allowing different states, for example branches with many leaves, fewer leaves, or no leaves.

 

I'll add this to my TODO list and try to implement this feature in one of the upcoming updates.

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation and examples!