I am modeling a scene and there is a stack of firewood in the distance and they are all cut into quarter logs. Just wondering if there is an easy way to model a few logs and have them easily stack in an orderly fashion and look believable.
you could use a particle system and physic simulation. if you dont understand this, then dont bother, its quite complicated.
but basically what you do, you model a few logs yourself, probably 4-10 different pieces then you dupe all, and rotate them 180c, then you duplicate all again and scale them a bit down on one axses, and dupe everything once more and scale it along another axses, this should give you a lot of logs that will seem to be quite random. then use a plane and a particlesystem, set emition to hair, and make a group of all the logs, and use that group as emition. then apply it so they become physical objects. this will take the logs at random, and place them all over the place. now add walls on around the logs so they dont fall apart, and run a physics sim. then apply, and delete the walls (they where just there to support during the sim). at this point you should have a nice stack where they all look different, and they will all naturally fall into place.
Hi,
Thanks. I have been trying to do this but I think my CPU may not be able to handle the physics. I have an 8 core sandy bridge but it still is running the sim slow as crap. Maybe too many verts.
Cool. Thanks. Good thinking on the hair system. It works.
So, now the question is, is there a way to get the simulation to stop? Or can I permanently cache it? Would be nice for it to deactivate but leave everything where it is so I can just render that frame.
well if you use subsurfacemodifiers, set them all to 0, build the support walls if needed (so the logs dont fall all over the place) and run the simulation. even if it takes a long time. once the logs are all stable, apply the position and remove the simulation. the sim is just to get them into a natural position rather than stacking them yourself. cause when you do it in real life you use gravity to kinda wiggle the logs into place, and if they dont fit, you find another location to place it.