growth operator...

[joe_coke]

doing some R&D on the growth operator and was wondering how much control there is (could be).  Take a look at this infection style growth from houdini: skip to 6:09 to see what i'm talking about



My results so far are interesting, but the tight knit pattern of growth i'm looking to achieve is alluding me.  Setting the radius and the spacing seems to work at the birth of a system, however it increases the distance as time moves forward:

ffs-----can't paste win snips------

Am i asking too much from the operator?

Is there a way of constraining the growth operator to the surface of say a cloth object?

[tyFlow]

There are a few settings you have to leverge. Reducing bias will keep particles more towards the center of a given cluster. Also you can use Object Bind in surface bind mode (with snap on) to constrain particles to a surface.

If you want a closer idea of how the growth algorithm works, to better understand the results you're getting, look up diffusion-limited aggregation.