Object Bind with Falloff?

[mitchfx]

Is it just me or do the Distance and Falloff values under Proximity Influence in Object Bind not really work correctly?  No matter how low I set the distance my particles still get nearly 100% affected even when FAR beyond that distance value.  I would like to use the Distance and Falloff to have only particles within a certain range be affected by the bind, but it really doesn't seem to work that way.  Maybe I'm just not understanding how it works?   For now I'm birthing some particles on the surface of the object instead and then binding to those as a work-around.  Far from an elegant solution though.

Here is what Tyson replied to my similar post on the facebook group...

In linear/dynamic mode, the falloff setting affects the force applied to particles. In sticky mode, it only affects the friction setting.
In sticky mode, particles remain locked to the surface, with only their velocity allowing local position changes. Using the proximity settings in sticky mode, effectively dampens local velocities by distance, reducing how fast particles may travel from their sticky location.
If you want to reduce how much particles will remain attached to a surface by distance, I'd suggest switching over to linear mode, which will not artifically stick particles to a local surface location, but will instead try to move them to their local target locations with forces.

I tried linear mode but the distance/falloff settings don’t seem to work as I would expect them to. The influence seemed to jump from all or nothing when I reach a certain distance value. What I’m looking for is a way to bind a cloud of particles to the surface of a geo object that only affects the particles near the surface then falls off from there. I can’t seem to get that effect using this operator no matter how much I tweak the settings.

Maybe I'm just totally misunderstanding how the distance and falloff works for this operator and there's a more elegant solutions for what I'm trying to achieve.  Basically I want a drag or connection of particles to the surface of an object that fades with distance from that surface.

[tyFlow]

Hey Mitch,

I think maybe I see the issue. Currently the algorithm calculates the distance to the projected point from the surface, not the closest point on the surface. But I feel like intuitively it would make sense for it to do the latter. To be honest, I implemented that setting like 5 years ago so I'm not sure why I chose to do the former. I'm sure at the time I had my reasons but in retrospect it doesn't seem obvious, so I'll change it.

Attached is a playblast of behavior you can expect in the next build. Does this seem more like what you want? Further particles from the actual surface (rather than their projected locations) are less influenced....

[mitchfx]

Looks great! Question, how does it be have if the object is static and the volume of particles is traveling though space after birth via a gravity or other force? That is the situation I'm struggling with currently.

BTW, would it make sense to have this new method be tied to a checkbox labeled something like "use surface distance" which is OFF by default? I can imagine a change like this would otherwise break a LOT of existing setups

Thanks

[tyFlow]

how does it be have if the object is static and the volume of particles is traveling though space after birth via a gravity or other force? That is the situation I'm struggling with currently.

I'm not sure what you mean, to be honest.

[mitchfx]

how does it be have if the object is static and the volume of particles is traveling though space after birth via a gravity or other force? That is the situation I'm struggling with currently.

I'm not sure what you mean, to be honest.

How about this for a belated response?  Haha!

What I'm talking about is if you want to bind your volume of particles to a surface that gets initialized on entry yet the effect itself is continuous.  That way any new particles that happen to travel into that influence zone don't get added to the bind effect, which is what seems to be happening now.  Does this make any sense?