Glitch → return-to-path with curl noise

[alexp]

Hi!

I’m after this behaviour:

1. Birth a cloud of particles and shape it with a Force operator using Curl Noise (abstract, non-continuous “lumpy” field to define the initial form).
   
2. Move particles over time with Force (Curl Noise) to get nice swirling motion.
   
3. Periodically “glitch” the particles (e.g. via Speed with a keyframed multiplier or burst) so they pop off-path.
   
4. When the glitch value drops below a threshold, have particles return to where they would have been on the original curl-noise motion, i.e. snap/seek back to their “proper” location on the field, preserving the overall structure.
   
   

I tried storing a Custom TM/pos before the glitch and sending to a new Event, but the curl noise isn’t matching there (maybe expected because event context/seed?). I can glitch them with Speed, but I can’t figure out the clean “return to correct curl position” once the keyframed value is low again (I need to test the keyframed control value, not each particle’s velocity).

Questions / proposed setups:

• Is the right approach to drive both events from a single external tyNoise (space warp) so the field is identical everywhere, and then:
  A) run a parallel “guide” event that follows only the curl force, keep IDs aligned, and use Target (Particle target) in the main event to seek each particle back to its guide twin when
  glitchAmount < threshold
  ?
  If yes: best practice to duplicate/lock IDs for a 1:1 guide/live pairing? (Send Out: Copy or another operator?)
  
  
• Or is there a cleaner way to compute the “expected” curl position per-frame without a guide, e.g. sample the field deterministically and store a Custom Vector (homePos) every frame, then enable a Target back to homePos
  while glitch is off? (If Target can’t use a custom vector directly, is Script the only option to steer toward that stored pos?)
  
  
• For gating the glitch: is Custom Float (scene controller) → Property Test the best way to branch between “glitch” and “return” states based on a keyframed scalar?
  
  

What I’m after is: continuous curl-noise advection, bursty offsets, then an accurate return to the curl path as if the bursts never happened (not just damping velocity).

Any recommended operator combo (Force/Target/Property Test/Send Out/guide flow) or example graph would be hugely appreciated.

Thankyou!

[usc001]

if you want a soft transition to a Custom TM you need to use "stop" operator before.
basically you want to disable all forces/velocitys to match your stored TM. you can also use one (or several) "slow" operators to define the timing for the transition.

[alexp]

if you want a soft transition to a Custom TM you need to use "stop" operator before.
basically you want to disable all forces/velocitys to match your stored TM. you can also use one (or several) "slow" operators to define the timing for the transition.

Makes sense, but Im not sure how to make this work. 

Conceptually it should be a base tyflow with slow moving noise, and then a second tyflow that births from the first flow and inherits the motion.
Then the second tyflow has some animated noise strength to add a layer of motion on top of the base layer.

But, how do I store the frame by frame TM of the base layer and then use it to find target in the additional layer, but only when its off target I guess?

So as soon as the particles have been glitched off track, they try to find their way back.

[alexp]

Actually just managed some sort of work around, animating Split amount instead of noise force.. see vid.