Cycles object relationship node?

Support Materials and Textures
1

It can probably be done by scripts right now… Unfortunately, I’m not much good at scripting. And I don’t think it can be accomplished just with a node group afaik.

But what I’d like is a node for Cycles materials that…

  • Has the ability to browse/lookup and select an object (or empty) from the index, to which it references.
  • Can measure the distance from the centerpoint of the object which the node containing material is applied to the centerpoint of the object selected via the lookup feature.
  • Returns a vector that points towards the centerpoint of the looked up object from the center of the object having the node containing material applied to it.
  • Has a true/false socket for collision of bounds of it’s containing object vs. lookup object.
  • Has a true/false socket for any bounds collision of the containing object.
  • Also generic proximity node that’s like the distance between two objects, but returns distance of multiple nearby objects. (Should have some level of clamp that limits number of objects and/or max distance, so it doesn’t get too crazy.)

I’m sure there are some other things… But there are a lot of cool effects that would be made easier if there was a ready-made node that gave some relationship feedback between two or even more objects. I hope the way I described it made enough sense so you could picture the usefulness of it.

2

That would be awesome. I second this request. I think for me, the generic proximity node where you can pick from a list of objects in your scene would be most useful. Especially if it was advanced enough to be able to allow one to chose not only the distance to the object’s center but have the shape of the object chosen to be used to define the value. Think a boat changing the properties of the water it is sitting in. . . or objects traveling through a force field. . . I’m a little new to blender so this may be possible through other means but from what I can see of the Cycles nodes, there really isn’t a ray-casting proximity sensor that you can list specific objects.