I am working on a scene where I need a mesh disposed at regular intervals along a nurbs curve, much like the effect of the rail sleepers in the mine ride tutorial ( http://vrotvrot.com/xoom/tutorials/mineRide/mineride.html ). To achieve this I used DupliFrames, setting DupOff to 2. However, the camera does not follow the path, so the original mesh which generates the DupliFrames is visible as it glides between the duplicates.
How could I get this original mesh hidden, so as to keep only the duplicates?
Makes sense, but how do I convert the dups? The only object I can select is the original, which is already a mesh, but all the dups appear non-selectable, being dupliframes.
But there again I must be missing something essential
Dupliverts and dupliframes are essentially the same thing. The first makes vertual copies at the selected verts and the second at the selected frames.
Let’s call the original mesh the ‘plant’ and the copied mesh (virtual mesh) the ‘leaves’. The plant will be one leaf and the leaves will be many copies of that same leaf. In the 3D window you will see both the plant and the leaves. But when you render you will only see the leaves.
If you choose to make dups real (Ctrl-Shft-A) you will see the plant and the leaves both in the 3D window and the render. Since both the plant and all the leaves are now real meshes you can select the plant and delete it, move it to another layer, scale it modify it… without affecting any of the leaves. You can also select any of the leaves and delete, move, scale etc.
Oh sorry, I didn’t meant baffle anyone.
I use a mesh of a laser bullet parented to a vertex that is the particle emitter, with duplivert option on. The bullet mesh appear in the render as the emitted particles copies, in fact I had to hide it inside the spaceship mesh or place it veeery long from the camera view… :-?
I tried to place the original mesh on one other layer, but of course if the layer is not selected not the original nor the copies can be rendered. It would be nice if a “layer option” could be added to the duplivert function, IMO.
Now you have me really confused. If I set the duplivert option to on then nothing renders. But that may just be due to the way I set mine up. And, yes, the bullet mesh should show up because it is the duplicate. The original mesh (the one that shouldn’t and doesn’t show up in the render) is the single vert emitter. It is the plant and the bullet is the leaves… many virtual leaves = many virtual bullets. But in the render you only see one bullet on frame 1. On the following frames you will still see this bullet and any other bullets that have been fired and are in the camera view. Is this what you get?
And, yes, the bullet mesh should show up because it is the duplicate. The original mesh (the one that shouldn’t and doesn’t show up in the render) is the single vert emitter.
Damn… you are right.
It is the plant and the bullet is the leaves… many virtual leaves = many virtual bullets. But in the render you only see one bullet on frame 1. On the following frames you will still see this bullet and any other bullets that have been fired and are in the camera view. Is this what you get?
Yes, it is exactly what I get. So there is one still copy located in the vertex emitter position. Any suggestion about how eliminate it?
Sheesh! To tell you the truth, now I’m out of my depth. At a guess I’d say to animate the alpha. In realtime either with an IPO or in the sequence editor and in the gameengine with one of those sensors/controllers/actuators that have me baffled. Maybe post a new topic.
In realtime either with an IPO or in the sequence editor and in the gameengine with one of those sensors/controllers/actuators that have me baffled.
Err… don’t know what this mean…
Maybe post a new topic.
I found on the documentation that the original mesh parented to an emitter for particles MUST be hide somewhere because it will be visible in the render… so seems that the only option would be to add a “layer option” to duplivert in a next release of Blender.
Anybody knows where and how post suggestions or features requests for the next releases?
You can already move your original object to another layer. You only need to have the parent on the layer you want to be visible, not the child. Just select the child, object to be duplicated, and hit ‘m’, select a layer and confirm with ‘return button’.
Hope this is what you wanted,
PamTango
Sorry that my answer didn’t work. I got lost in the thread of conversation and thought you were now only interested in dupleverts and not the emitter. As you did say before you can take your original and hide it in something, or put it off camera.
Sorry to interupt the flow.
Please continue,
(Had to say something more as this post puts me at 100, perhaps an inglorious post to do so, but 100 never the less)
