Hi all,
Is there a way to introduce a certain amount of randomness in the position of selected vertices? Rather than manually - select groups then grab and move slightly.
I thought the ‘noise’ button might do it in the edit panel but no.
Why do you say that??? Actually if there is something that the ‘noise’ button can do, is to give “randomness”…
What are you trying to do, exactly??? Are you trying to model a landscape??? If that’s so, you could use S68’s world forge script…
One other way of giving randomness is to go in edit mode, select your vertices and then go W–>‘Subdivide fractal’, set a high ‘Rand fac’. This will give you randomization in the position of the vertices, but ofcourse it will increase their number…
Or you could try to do it “manually” one vertex at a time, but this time by using the proportional editing tool (in edit mode press ‘O’)…
[quote=“Timonides”]
Why do you say that??? Actually if there is something that the ‘noise’ button can do, is to give “randomness”… [/quote]
That’s what I thought. But the help tip says “Use vertex coordinate as texture coordinate” and comparing the vertex position before and after clicking noise gives no change. I simply want a certain randomness in the surface of say an apple shape.
Having looked at the knowledge base I’m buggered if I can figure out what the proportional editing tool does. It seems to move my veritices in exactly the same way as ordinary editing with the grab tool.
If you have pressed the ‘noise’ button only once, then it is pretty logical not to have very good results…
Try to press it several times, till you get an acceptable result…
I simply want a certain randomness in the surface of say an apple shape.
Maybe the ‘noise’ function isn’t the most appropriate way of doing this…
I would like to suggest to use ‘Displacement Map’ instead, but of course this is a texturing method and it doesn’t involve real permanent geometry… It could do the trick though… 
Having looked at the knowledge base I’m buggered if I can figure out what the proportional editing tool does. It seems to move my veritices in exactly the same way as ordinary editing with the grab tool.
Yes and no… If you activate the proportional tool you’ll see a spherical “area” around your cursor… It defines the radius of influence of the tool… By using your mouse wheel or with the ‘+’ ‘-’ buttons, you can increase or decrease it… This also doesn’t apply only for ‘Grab’, you can have very interesting and peculiar results when scaling, or rotating the vertices…
There was a nice tutorial about making landscapes with the proportional tool, if I find it I’ll post the link, so you can have a better understanding of what the tool exactly does…
[quote=“Timonides”]
If you have pressed the ‘noise’ button only once, then it is pretty logical not to have very good results…
Try to press it several times, till you get an acceptable result…
I simply want a certain randomness in the surface of say an apple shape.
Maybe the ‘noise’ function isn’t the most appropriate way of doing this…
I would like to suggest to use ‘Displacement Map’ instead, but of course this is a texturing method and it doesn’t involve real permanent geometry… It could do the trick though…
Having looked at the knowledge base I’m buggered if I can figure out what the proportional editing tool does. It seems to move my veritices in exactly the same way as ordinary editing with the grab tool.
Yes and no… If you activate the proportional tool you’ll see a spherical “area” around your cursor… It defines the radius of influence of the tool… By using your mouse wheel or with the ‘+’ ‘-’ buttons, you can increase or decrease it… This also doesn’t apply only for ‘Grab’, you can have very interesting and peculiar results when scaling, or rotating the vertices…
There was a nice tutorial about making landscapes with the proportional tool, if I find it I’ll post the link, so you can have a better understanding of what the tool exactly does…[/quote]
I got it - my circles was too small. Large enough it starts to pull the other linked vertices.
I still have nothing happening with my ‘noise’ button. No matter how many times I press it the X, Y and Z vertices never change.
To use noise, you must have a texture loaded, noise takes the amount of vertex movement from the texture.
Alternatively, a nice quick way of getting some randomness is in edit mode Select->Random… give it a percentage, and then Alt-S Shrink/Fatten along normals.
Hehe… 
In my previous reply regarding this issue, I wrongly assumed that sirfragalot had assigned a texture on his object… lol
Yeah, in order to use the ‘noise’ button you have to apply a texture first…
A Python script could do it, of course. But I, too, wonder what is the ultimate objective here…
(Yes, I’m quite new to blender so still working my way through the manual.)
The objective is this: if I wish to model an apple for example, that is a roughly spherical shape and I can make it more apple-like with general vertex-manipulation. However, a real apple is not completely smooth and has all sorts of bumps and pits in it that cast or produce subtle shadows and reflections on the surface. I’d like to introduce a little randomness into the Z, X and/or Y position of selected vertices in an attempt to duplicate this bumping and pitting.
At this point I would like to repeat what I said earlier… Please do not be offended by this, but I consider it as a very bad strategy…
I have no doubt that you will eventually manage to introduce that kind of randomness and complexity, but I would like to ask you to consider the overall cost of it: Very heavy scenes, very long rendering times, to name some…
That kind of randomness and complexity could also be “introduced” with texturing methods, such as bump mapping, displacement maps etc…
You don’t really have to actually model this whole “complexity” you want… This is something that should be avoided, whenever possible…
A reasonable amount of modelled detail and good use of textures, could do magical things for you…
I really wish, that this will help you in some way…
That’s not a problem with me…
I haven’t met anybody, who was borned, knowing everything about Blender, yet… 
Keep “Blending”…
At this point I would like to repeat what I said earlier… Please do not be offended by this, but I consider it as a very bad strategy…
I have no doubt that you will eventually manage to introduce that kind of randomness and complexity, but I would like to ask you to consider the overall cost of it: Very heavy scenes, very long rendering times, to name some…
That kind of randomness and complexity could also be “introduced” with texturing methods, such as bump mapping, displacement maps etc…
You don’t really have to actually model this whole “complexity” you want… This is something that should be avoided, whenever possible…
A reasonable amount of modelled detail and good use of textures, could do magical things for you…
I really wish, that this will help you in some way…
That’s not a problem with me…
I haven’t met anybody, who was borned, knowing everything about Blender, yet…
Keep “Blending”…[/quote]
No offense taken and I’m happy to receive advice.
I’ve yet to get into texturing, displacement maps etc. but will bear it in mind.