Hi, while I have asked similar questions before, I never got an answer, that would satisfy me completely.
I know about particles and hair in Blender, I know about duplifaces and dupligroups. Now they all work a little differently and for what I am trying to achieve, I’d need something from all of their features.
Duplication using hair:
- the ability to input a a number of prototypes, that get chosen to be duplicated randomly, thus creating variation
+can easily control the number of duplicates independently from the source object and distribute the duplicates randomly
- I can’t directly control the transforms of individual duplicated objects
duplication using dupligroups:
+can duplicate a hierarchy/group of prototypes
+can control transforms of duplicate
-only creates one duplicate per source object
duplication using dupliverts:
+multiple duplicates per source object
-no randomness
-can’t duplicate groups/hierarchies
- no control over transforms of individual duplicates
duplication using duplifaces:
+multiple duplicates per source object
+can control transforms of duplicate
-no randomness for amount, distribution or transforms
I would like to replicate my workflow from Modo, which has quite a robust duplication system, called Replicators. Let’s say, I want to populate a parking lot with cars, the parking lot is not your typical ‘grid type’ though, but some of the spaces are rotated to fit the non-rectangular floor-plan of the area. What I would do in Modo:
-Create a replicator, that has 2 inputs: Source and Prototype
-for the Source, I’d use an object with a rectangular polygon for every parking space
-for the prototype, I’d use a group of locators (null objects), that have a different car model parented to each of them, where the car model can be a complete hierarchy with every single part being a separate object
-now just change some settings of the replicator item:
-the source has to be polygon, this way, just like duplifaces in blender, the replica inherits the rotation of the polygon
-tick the ‘replicate child items’ boolean, to duplicate whole hierarchies
-there’s a percentage amount, which controls, how many of the polygons get populated with a replica
-a seed value to control all randomness
-random rotation, translation and scale
-with a little bit of rigging, I can add a random rotation with incremental values, lent’s say 180 degrees, so some cars are parked in reverse and add a few degrees random rotation on top of that, to make it look more organic
In Modo, you can also use vertices as a source and control the base scale, rotation and translation of the replica placed on that vertex with a vertex map.
Is there a way to get this kind of control over duplication in Blender? If not, is it possible to place a feature request?
Thanks in advance.