How to create a huge swarm of tyActors

[d4rk3lf]

I am trying to find an approach that uses the Shape operator with animated geometry instead but because the beetle is made from about 7 pieces when I add them to the Shape operator Tyflow scatters all these parts individually rather than as a rigged beetle.


Is there a good solution to this?

One way would be that you place your skinned beetle with all 3 animations on it,. in whatever order you like 
Make a snapshoot of all 7 pieces, and attach all pieces to one mesh. 
Then add skinwrap or TyParticle skin operator to the beetle static mesh model, and reference these 7 parts. 
Now the static beetle model will follow animations of your rigged one. 
You then just point cache it, and collapse modifiers bellow (skinwrap or typarticle skin) 

In shape operator you have a way to control range of animation that you want to trigger and even blend and randomize them. 

Btw, I am not sure you will need "lift off" animation.. imho.. it's better to do a TyFlow (using forces and slow operator) to do the lifting, and you can just trigger then fly animation. 
Maybe better that you add walk (in place) animation, so some of the beetles could walk on a surface (with help of object bind operator).