FFD operator

[TubeSmokeGuy]

Hi!

Can we please have an FFD operator?

For example I have a stack of particles and want to reshape it a little, like using the standard FFD modifiers in max. Also the control points of the FFD cage should be animatable.
(Maybe it would be possible to use the FFD spacewarp to let the particles pass through it.)

Thank you and greetings!

[tyFlow]

Why not just use the existing FFD modifiers in max?

[TubeSmokeGuy]

How? - You mean using the mesh operator and disable render only mode and then apply the modifier to the tyFlow object and modify it like an ordinary mesh object?

But then the particle shapes are deformed too. Thats not good. What if I only whant to affect the particle positions without modifying the particle shapes?

Also it would be cool to have it inside the flow to continue with particle related operations after the FFD deformation. And also use the animated FFD gizmo to apply some movement to the particles.

[tyFlow]

Oh I see, you mean applying to particle points directly. I'm not sure that will ever be possible, no.

[TubeSmokeGuy]

"Not shure" means, there is not entirely no hope!

It doesn't have to be a clone of the "FFD Modifier" from standard max. But an approach that works similar to it. I can't belive that there is no way to implement something like this.

[tyFlow]

The problem is that Max's modifier stack isn't really built for particles. I'd basically have to build my own stack functions which run parallel to Max's stack (similar to what Thinkbox did for Krakatoa), which I don't want to do. Perhaps in the distant future when Max further integrates Bifrost, they'll make it easier to do particle modifications/instancing and such.

[TubeSmokeGuy]

But isn't an event with a set of operators not kind of a "stack"?

What I initailly meant with "stack" was something like this (a stack of particles):


Not the 3dsmax modifier-"stack".

I don't imagine a FFD modifier which can be placed on top of a tyflow object from the modifier list.
I imagine a FFD operator which has to be put into an event, as regular as all other operators.

What the operator should offer is an FFD cage, that is an adaptively approximated low res grid arround the current state of expansion of the incomming particles, which remodels the particle stream that passes through it, when some of the initially built control points have been moved. Otherwise the particles pass unchanged.