How to track single actors (by ID), when number total changes?

[Alexx31]

Hello,

I have tweaked single actors in a crowd, but their birth ID depends from the total number of born actors.

Is it possible to give a fixed ID manually for some actors?
I need this to rotate them individually or control their speed.

Because this is a scene, which is still developing (WIP), the number of actors changes.

Thanks

[tyFlow]

Not sure I understand the request...if the number of actors can change to any arbitrary number, I'm not sure how they could be effectively tracked.

Perhaps you could split them up by their physical location? Ex: plant some boxes in the scene to be used with a Surfact Test (inside test)...then send out particles in different boxes to different events for different control. That way, for example, the number of actors could change but the actors which end up in the various boxes are still controlled by the same output events.

[Alexx31]

Thanks, yes that’s the way I do it.
Just wanted to know, if a birth ID could be fix „assigned“, just like a car that gets a number plate.

Another method would be for sure to work with export groups.
It would be cool, if there would be more different export groups available.
(Currently the number is limited to the amount of given letters, it could be just a custom float value as it is implemented with channels)

[tyFlow]

Birth IDs cannot be assigned, no. Because they must always be 100% unique for each particle - no exceptions. If I allowed users to assign birth IDs, I'd open up the possibilities that users could break that rule, which could have disastrous implications all throughout tyFlow simulation logic.

Internally you can assign up to 65536 different export or simulation group values. You're just limited to 16 groups in the UI because that's the maximum number of bitflags an unsigned short value can have. But you could use a Script operator or Custom Properties operator to assign more than 16 values to a simulation/export groups channel. This ability can allow you to treat groups more like clusters.

[Alexx31]

Great to know about the ability in the custom properties...