07-05-2019, 08:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-16-2019, 07:16 PM by insertmesh.)
I´m starting this thread just as a personal wishlist to keep track of what I´m actually missing in my day to day workflow, or where I think things could be even easier.
Feel free to add your own top 10!
1. Save/load custom presets
The basic solution would just be to just be able to save and load tyFlows.
The extended solution would have a couple more helpful options:
A) Checkbox to also save all used scene objects or just the flow with "placeholder"-names where the assets were used.
B) Automatic correction for scene scale. Not sure if this is possible, but I regularily have to switch scene units throughout my scenes and then after I import a flow I need to correct a lor of the forces and binding parameters, which sometimes takes almost as long as recreating the flow manually. Phoenix does something similar like this with its presets.
C) Define custom save folder for presets that gets remembered throughout sessions.
2. Improved caching
Right now, most changes in the flow require the whole flow to be updated.
But sometimes I´m happy with the results up to a certain frame and it wouldn´t be necessary to update until this flow. So either "freezing" the flow up to a certain frame (only of course if nothing changes before that frame) or up to a certain event would be a great way to speed things up.
I know this is sort of possible with birth flow, but its an extra step and requires some thinking around corners sometimes.
This could be either event based with a lock or snowflake icon in the upper right corner of the event that could be clicked to freeze everything im memory, from the birth to this event, after caching it once.
3. Voronoi improvements
A) Excplicit normals, so we can have prefractured round objects without seeing the fractures.
B) More pattern options/presets like wood (which is already doable with scaling) and glass patterns.
C) Add Inner Faces Detail. Right now, there is no good way to add details to the inner faces created by the voronoi. Vray displacement doesn´t work, because of the torn edges and all mesh operations post flow, that rely on material ID, fail when the fracturing is happening dynamically.
So either a post sim tyFrag modifier or something working through tyFlow itself would be great for that extra level of realism.
4. Find Particles operator
I´d still love an operator, that makes it easier to have some particles find some other particles, analogue to how the find target operator works.
I know I´ve requested this before and I´m currently using a mixed workflow with point force and/or neighbour search, but this is sometimes complicated to setup (depending on the flow) and is missing some features.
A) Find Particles randomly. With point force and a big falloff, particles tend to clump together, when usually I want them to just randomly find a target particle.
Optionally It would be even better if there would be the option to either "lock" to a randomly picked particle birth ID and then follow that around, OR to randomly pick a particle and switch targets around after a set time.
B) Find Particles by property. So you could sort particles by looking only for a certain scale or velocity threshold.
C) Of course: Add a sendout option to send particles to another event, if they are at a certain distance to the target particle.
Implemented...
5. Extended event box information.
Clicking on an event right now doesn´t do anything, you just get an empty box, where you usually have all your operator infos (at the very right of the tyFlow window)
So here are some ideas on how to fill that emptiness:
A) Particle count. Right now you can only get the particle count for the whole flow in the Maxscript listener. Being able to get more detailed info per event at a glance would be great. Implemented
B) Not sure this make sense, but I still like the idea: Put simulation and export groups in the event box! You could still have the particle groups operator to override these settings if needed, but this way you could get rid of the need for it, since you could always just set the groups by clickling on an event.
C) Warnings for dummies. Again...not sure if this makes sense and its probably a lot of work...But sometimes putting operators in a certain order in a flow is just wrong and dumb, so there could be warnings displayed in the event box, that tells you that.
Was just thinking of that because of the warning you get in Pflow, when putting an mParticles test in the wrong order in an event.
6. Inherit Wirecolor from event display color
Pflow did this and it was very handy. Only thing I´m missing so far.
7. Hotkey to open tyFlow editor.
I realize, that tyFlow works differently than Pflow, in the way that each tyFlow is a selfcontained unit with its own editor (unlike Pflow, where you have ONE editor for ALL flows in the scene). So the hotkey could either:
A) Open the selected tyFlow
B) Open the last used tyFlow
C) Open a numbered list of all tyFlows in the scene, so you could hit the Hotkey first to open that list and then hit the number of the tyFlow you want to edit.
In the end this could also be part of a tyFlow companion script (I know there is one floating around already to put all tyFlow objects in one toolbox), as long as the opening is accessible via maxscript.
8. Autodisable/enable "Real time playback" in the timeline.
In my workflow this is one of the most annoying parts: Since I wanna see whats going on in computationally intense flows during simulation, I like to untick "real time" in the playback options. But then I gotta undo that once I got a couple of frames for playback, if I wanna judge the realtime dynamics.
So an option somewhere in the main rollout to Auto disable realtime playback upon ram caching, that would also auto enable it after caching is done or paused, would be great.
9. More options in the camera Cull operator.
A) Options to clip far and near distance, not just frustrum.
B) Send out option to send out particles affected by the operator to another event.
10. Layer Adding Implemented...
This was also suggested somewhere in the facebook group: Would be neat if we were able pick layers, wherever we can add objects to the flow.
This would make it super procedural when replaceing/adding objects in a flow: Simply drag and drop items in the corresponding layer and boom...(or bind or whatever...
EDIT: I know I´m kind of cheating by having several wishes listed as ABC under one topic...
Feel free to add your own top 10!
1. Save/load custom presets
The basic solution would just be to just be able to save and load tyFlows.
The extended solution would have a couple more helpful options:
A) Checkbox to also save all used scene objects or just the flow with "placeholder"-names where the assets were used.
B) Automatic correction for scene scale. Not sure if this is possible, but I regularily have to switch scene units throughout my scenes and then after I import a flow I need to correct a lor of the forces and binding parameters, which sometimes takes almost as long as recreating the flow manually. Phoenix does something similar like this with its presets.
C) Define custom save folder for presets that gets remembered throughout sessions.
2. Improved caching
Right now, most changes in the flow require the whole flow to be updated.
But sometimes I´m happy with the results up to a certain frame and it wouldn´t be necessary to update until this flow. So either "freezing" the flow up to a certain frame (only of course if nothing changes before that frame) or up to a certain event would be a great way to speed things up.
I know this is sort of possible with birth flow, but its an extra step and requires some thinking around corners sometimes.
This could be either event based with a lock or snowflake icon in the upper right corner of the event that could be clicked to freeze everything im memory, from the birth to this event, after caching it once.
3. Voronoi improvements
A) Excplicit normals, so we can have prefractured round objects without seeing the fractures.
B) More pattern options/presets like wood (which is already doable with scaling) and glass patterns.
C) Add Inner Faces Detail. Right now, there is no good way to add details to the inner faces created by the voronoi. Vray displacement doesn´t work, because of the torn edges and all mesh operations post flow, that rely on material ID, fail when the fracturing is happening dynamically.
So either a post sim tyFrag modifier or something working through tyFlow itself would be great for that extra level of realism.
4. Find Particles operator
I´d still love an operator, that makes it easier to have some particles find some other particles, analogue to how the find target operator works.
I know I´ve requested this before and I´m currently using a mixed workflow with point force and/or neighbour search, but this is sometimes complicated to setup (depending on the flow) and is missing some features.
A) Find Particles randomly. With point force and a big falloff, particles tend to clump together, when usually I want them to just randomly find a target particle.
Optionally It would be even better if there would be the option to either "lock" to a randomly picked particle birth ID and then follow that around, OR to randomly pick a particle and switch targets around after a set time.
B) Find Particles by property. So you could sort particles by looking only for a certain scale or velocity threshold.
C) Of course: Add a sendout option to send particles to another event, if they are at a certain distance to the target particle.
Implemented...
5. Extended event box information.
Clicking on an event right now doesn´t do anything, you just get an empty box, where you usually have all your operator infos (at the very right of the tyFlow window)
So here are some ideas on how to fill that emptiness:
A) Particle count. Right now you can only get the particle count for the whole flow in the Maxscript listener. Being able to get more detailed info per event at a glance would be great. Implemented
B) Not sure this make sense, but I still like the idea: Put simulation and export groups in the event box! You could still have the particle groups operator to override these settings if needed, but this way you could get rid of the need for it, since you could always just set the groups by clickling on an event.
C) Warnings for dummies. Again...not sure if this makes sense and its probably a lot of work...But sometimes putting operators in a certain order in a flow is just wrong and dumb, so there could be warnings displayed in the event box, that tells you that.
Was just thinking of that because of the warning you get in Pflow, when putting an mParticles test in the wrong order in an event.
6. Inherit Wirecolor from event display color
Pflow did this and it was very handy. Only thing I´m missing so far.
7. Hotkey to open tyFlow editor.
I realize, that tyFlow works differently than Pflow, in the way that each tyFlow is a selfcontained unit with its own editor (unlike Pflow, where you have ONE editor for ALL flows in the scene). So the hotkey could either:
A) Open the selected tyFlow
B) Open the last used tyFlow
C) Open a numbered list of all tyFlows in the scene, so you could hit the Hotkey first to open that list and then hit the number of the tyFlow you want to edit.
In the end this could also be part of a tyFlow companion script (I know there is one floating around already to put all tyFlow objects in one toolbox), as long as the opening is accessible via maxscript.
8. Autodisable/enable "Real time playback" in the timeline.
In my workflow this is one of the most annoying parts: Since I wanna see whats going on in computationally intense flows during simulation, I like to untick "real time" in the playback options. But then I gotta undo that once I got a couple of frames for playback, if I wanna judge the realtime dynamics.
So an option somewhere in the main rollout to Auto disable realtime playback upon ram caching, that would also auto enable it after caching is done or paused, would be great.
9. More options in the camera Cull operator.
A) Options to clip far and near distance, not just frustrum.
B) Send out option to send out particles affected by the operator to another event.
10. Layer Adding Implemented...
This was also suggested somewhere in the facebook group: Would be neat if we were able pick layers, wherever we can add objects to the flow.
This would make it super procedural when replaceing/adding objects in a flow: Simply drag and drop items in the corresponding layer and boom...(or bind or whatever...
EDIT: I know I´m kind of cheating by having several wishes listed as ABC under one topic...
