"Discrete - In science means the opposite of continuous:
something that is separate; distinct or individual."
Introducing a mesh - surface and volume aware particle system for Modo,
utilizing fast and highly optimized (SIMD) packing algorithms.
(Modo 15.2+, Windows X64 and ARM/Intel based Mac)
Free upgrade for current v1.0 license owners!
Introducing a new Curve Particle Packing Distribution.
-Sample particles on curves using any of the 4 different powerful sample modes.
-Loop or cull particles based on start and end positions on the curve and offset particles by fraction or speed.
-Control particle tangent alignment and rotation using various modes based on your use case.
-Align Particles to it's closest mesh normal
-Particle IDs can be created in random fashion or in a uniform sequence.
-Camera frustum particle culling support
-Mesh layer transforms (Surface and Volume Mesh)
-Particle rotation and slope orientation alignment
-Random particle rotation
-Polygon distance threshold for the Volume Distribution enables control of closest polygon normal alignment
-Weight maps added by MeshOps is now supported
-Vector Map support controlling particle orientation (Surface distribution)
Vastly improved consistency providing near flicker free particles in most scenarios.
-When using multiple replicator prototypes
-When using the Chaos parameter
-When particles are culled the particle ids stays stable
-When applying transforms on the mesh layers, Ray Projections or Ray Domains.
The time and energy spent on development is fueled by pure passion for Modo and it's amazing community. Consider donating if you want to support the free updates when we occasionally release them.
You will get 4 bonus scenes.
3x Particle Systems (Surface, Volume and Curve aware)
2x Blue Noise Uniform distributions
1x White Noise Random distribution
6x Particle Projections (Planar, Cubic, Cylindrical, Hemispherical and Spherical)
5x SIMD Optimized Packing Algorithms (Circle, Spherical, Square, Cubic, AABB)
15+ Example scenes (containing simple tutorials/comments in the schematics)
Sample particles on static or dynamic curves with high precision. Go from same sized particles to random size by simply changing the sample mode and the particle max/min size values.
Absolute distance sampling walks the curve and determines the first fit for an absolute distance between particles. An excellent feature when creating and animating tank tracks or conveyer belts where high precision "packing/fitting" is needed.
Vector maps can be used to control particle orientation. It works out of the box with the Modo hair combing tools. Particles are aligned to the vector map normals using a linear, naive interpolation approach.
Rotate the particles randomly around it's local Y-axis. Every particle will be rotated according to a multiple of the specified angle.
Surface and Volume mesh layer transforms are now fully supported and taken into account when projecting particles.
Connect a camera to any of the particle distributions and enable frustum culling. Tweak the cull margin and distance to hide any culling events from the camera view.
Rotation alignment can be used to force particle orientation to align to a slope. This useful when for instance adding condensation droplets onto a can to enforce any streaks to follow the slope.
The Curve Distribution particle system can align particles to a mesh and it's closest polygon normals. This grants you the extra control when particle alignment precision is needed.
(Scene credit: Yoshikai Yuji)
Inconsistent solver of particle IDs causing random positioning of the replicator prototypes in v1.0.
Particle IDs in v.1.1 are stable independent of culling and the successful total number of the projected particle hits.
Version 1.0 packing algorithm caused particle flickering when animating the underlying surface.
(Animation: Yoshikai Yuji)
The packing algorithms are much more solid in v1.1 and greatly reduces the risk of flickering.
(Animation: Yoshikai Yuji)
In this example particles are distributed within a spherical volume using a Hammersley distribution.
It generates particles IDs in particular order that represents a sequence according to an axis in the volume.
Even though particles are culled, the IDs are consistent throughout the animation.
(This was not possible to achieve in v1.0.)
The Curve Particle Distribution implements many powerful features when it comes to animating particles on a curve. This is an example of what can be achieved when several channels are animated in synchronization and when using different sample modes.
Top left: Random size, offset by fraction and cull by end
Bottom left: Offset by fraction and loop
Top right: Random size, offset by speed and loop
Bottom right: Offset by speed and loop
Modo CPG vs Discrete Particles
Particles are distributed over the Torus surface using a Spherical projection in combination with a procedural Texture Falloff.
Particles are distributed onto a plane surface using a Planar Projection in combination with a procedural Texture Falloff.
Volume Distribution, Cubic packing and a procedural texture Falloff combined.
Example of a Cubic Volume Projection into a mesh. The particles can dynamically adapt it's size to stay within the limits of the mesh volume.
Discrete Particles is built seamlessly into Modo like it is part of the application. It’s compatible with the existing Particle Modifiers, the Replicator, Falloffs etc. Discrete Particles are True native Modo particles.
The Projection Gizmo enables full control of how particles are distributed over a surface. You can translate, scale, rotate and even animate the Projection Gizmo.
The Projection gizmos defines the source position for the ray casting and mesh intersections are therefore handled accordingly.
The particle size in this example is preprocessed by a blend falloff that in this case blends a linear falloff and a procedural texture before the actual packing occurs.
Particles are projected onto the 3D surface using Box Projection. The rotation and scale of the Box Projection Gizmo has been animated.
Use Weight maps to get the best control of Particle size and placement on any mesh surface.
The packing algorithms takes weight maps into account using a linear naive interpolation approach to ensure that the performance impact is minimal.
Shrink particles as part of the packing process to create spacing between the packing borders of surface particles.
Adjust the size of the particles as a post packing processing step using gradients. The gradient enables you to resize surface particles based on their packing size.
I love this Kit!
This is one of the few, absolute 'must buy' Kits for Modo.
Discrete Particles is a must have for anyone working with Particles. Adding this tool to my toolkit feels like a major upgrade to Modo.
The Discrete Particle system is an indispensable Kit that complements Modo's particle systems.
Discrete Particles for Modo 15.2 - 17.x
-Modo 15.2+ (Intel build), Windows 11 X64
-Modo 15.2+ (Intel build), Mac Intel (Rosetta)
-Modo 17.0+ (ARM build), Mac Mx (ARM64)
