MASH Placer Node - Painting Points

[@onurmuratsakgun7246]

I'm gonna be honest, trough all the vids I have watched about random prop scattering, your is the most smartest and easy to do. I was about to get some cancer until I saw your vid which helped me to solve my problem thx alot mate!

[@3dsplanchnic737]

Thank you! MASH is the best thing to happen to Maya in a long time! It is fun and really useful. Thanks for all the hard work!

[@TonicEnergy]

DUDE YOU SAVED MY LIFE! I was about to die from wasting my life on Xgen geometry instance painter - but then you came out of nowhere with your sophisticated english accent and saved me!! : O

[@marcusm6104]

Thanks for a no-nonsense, no fluff and rapid tutorial!

Finally a kind of easy way to create a mosaic?

[@TheIcemanModdeler]

This tool is great, the rotate has been broken for a few releases now, it’s not aligned with any axes.

[@zetsuboushitasama]

It's really useful. Thanks for your help with this tut! For me collide doesn't work so I move & resize them by myself. XD

[@josh-ed7je]

Yes making an forrest is finally easy in maya.

[@reblium]

Hi Ian, In you video you explain about the strict collision mode. Can you elaborate a little more about howto change the paint density when using the strict mode? Also how does MASH evaluate the collision base on Bounding Box of the orginal mesh?

[@ianwaters6035]

The collision is based on a spherical area (based on 1*the scale of the item). The way to change the paint density is to have all your objects be 1 unit high when they go in MASH and let MASH/ Placer do all the scaling. That way the strict mode paint density will behave how you want it to.

[@jeff_sullivan]

I am loving the 'Move' 'Rotate' and 'Scale' feature for individual instances.. Though on uneven terrain, when moving the particles, they can loose contact with the mesh surface they've been placed on.. Is there a way to keep the particles sticking to the mesh surface while translating them around? Similar to a making a surface "Live"?

[@ianwaters6035]

Yes we do not have a 'slide on surface' tool, would you like one? :)

[@jeff_sullivan]

YES! That would be incredibly powerful! I'm investigating using this as a crowd placement tool.. the ability to per particle toggle on/off 'align to mesh normals' would be amazing too.. Thanks for responding to feedback and thank you for MASH, Ian.. it's the best thing to happen to Maya in years!

[@JoshForeman]

I would also like to use this for crowds, as well as blocking out cities for maps for my fantasy novel I'm illustrating. Thanks so much!

[@LAMO0212]

This is great! It's saving me so much time when placing bulbs on a cable for string lights. On problem though, I'd like to change the rotation of individual bulbs, but the rotation mode here doesn't influence the painted down bulbs at all. Move and scale are fine though. Any ideas?

[@RoN43wwq]

will be nice to add collide or overlaping node to standart distribute node. Now with high density instances overlaping each other

[@ianwaters6035]

A tutorial for this is coming today :)

[@litote9]

Great tutorial Ian! One question... When you are using the Collide brush to space out overlapping instances on the sphere, the trees are being pushed off the surface of the mesh, above it. Is there a way to keep them fixed on the surface. I can only get this to keep instances attached to the surface on a perfectly flat Plane. One method may be to use the Move brush to select individual instances and move them back down on to the surface, except the Move widget is not aligned with each instance, but skewed, making it difficult to realign them by just dragging the Y axis. Is there a way to set the Y axis to align with an instance you select?

[@sbest58]

Hi Ian, I am trying to use Mash to create sweat on the face of a character. I have used the Placer Node to paint points on the mesh, but they do not follow the deformable mesh. I also tried using the Distribute Node to create a random pattern but I am getting to many around the eyes and mouth. Tried a selection set of the faces I wanted points on, but distribution was no longer random, each point was in the middle of a face. Tried using the Placer brush to scatter points , but this has no effect.

[@dubscope2246]

so collision only works when the objects are scaled into a scene unit of 1.1.1 cm ?

dude, I love you... this just save my life! :)

[@pilotgfx]

thank you

[@sbest58]

Hi Ian, I tried using Distribute with scatter and 'Scatter uses face area' selected this gives a better distribution of points, but as the mesh is deformed the points jump about because the face sizes are changing.

[@ianwaters6035]

Hey Stephen, you need to use the technique explained in the mesh scattering tutorial, where I attach points to a skinned mesh: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4ano5KkgJ6DidU

[@sbest58]

Hi Ian, thanks I found that video yesterday and have got it working. I am now trying to get the drops of sweat moving across the skin and then fly off with movement of the head and gravity. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[@ianwaters6035]

Hmm, instead of using the MASH technique in the mesh video, maybe what you should use instead is nCloth (with the polygon shells option enabled on the cloth), then use a high stickiness to stick the 'sweat' to the mesh, and then it will fly off naturally. I haven't tried this, but it's the first way I would attempt it. Make sure your MASH network is a Repro network, not instancer (you can convert MASH networks from one to the other via the Switch Geometry Type utility).

[@sbest58]

Will give that a try, do not have any experience with nCloth, but thats how we learn. Will keep you updated on progress. Cheers

[@sbest58]

That is looking very promising

[@DariuszMakowski]

Can u place meshes and then apply random transform/to change their scale randomly or by texture?

[@keltart809]

for those who want to know it appears you can I just tested it. Just add a random node after the Placer

[@Vadim-tc5hk]

the collision detection is based on particles (sphere shape) right? Or it's taking into account the actual shape? or maybe a hull around the geo?

[@ianwaters6035]

It's spherical, there's no collision going on here (it would be way too slow).

[@dubscope2246]

random id is not working for me, is it meant to be a range? let's says, 14-19? I always get objects that are not in this range of id's?

[@ianwaters6035]

Could you send me a scene to check over?

[@RoadDope]

great video, thank you. Although I have a problem, collide doesn't work. Neither the brash, nor the "collide on create" function. What can be the cause? I have warning every time I create a mash "Starting position (1) is invalid. It must be in the range from 1 to the length of the string. Clamping index to range. // "

[@ianwaters6035]

You'll need to upload the scene somewhere for me to take a look. I don't think that warning is coming from MASH. If you want to use Collide, make sure your object is 1 scene unit wide when you put it into MASH, then scale it with MASH - then collisions should work.

[@RoadDope]

Yes, maybe it's not the mash problem, because every time i create a new object I started to get this warning. It just says it has smth to do with mash plug-in. C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2017/plug-ins/MASH/scripts/isMashObject.mel line 18: Starting position (1) is invalid. It must be in the range from 1 to the length of the string. Clamping index to range. //

[@ianwaters6035]

Oh dear, something has broken with your Maya, that's bad. Try deleting preferences?! Do you know what you did just before you started getting this error?

[@RoadDope]

So I've got rid of this warning by exporting parts of my scene in fbx and importing into the new scene, but problem remains. The fun thing is I tried empty scene and just tested mash placer and everything worked fine, so it is my scene, but I have no idea what the nature of the problem is. If, by any chance, you have an opportunity to check my scene, I would appreciate it very much. There I've just tested it on cylinders. drive.google.com/open?id=0B_RmIg8yBu8dRGdoNlV5UGdNTDQ

[@dubtube6691]

Nice little tool but how about a forest with millions of plants?

[@SSCrow]

This is awesome. Is there a place where I can download these meshes?

[@ianwaters6035]

Hey, I bought them from the Unity Asset Store, they came as FBX files, then I just imported them.

[@czcdigital]

Hi guys , i got problem on my maya version ! I'm under 2017 and the placer node is missing in the mash editor , can somebody tell me how to get it ? Thanks you, and nice tutorial man !

[@ianwaters6035]

You need 2017 update 3 :)

[@ReekoArch]

Is this the equivalent to Max's Object Paint?

[@ianwaters6035]

Yes, it's similar.

[@cosmotect]

the placer node is missing in my maya :/

[@ianwaters6035]

Are you using 2017u3?

[@cosmotect]

Ian Waters I wasn't, realized it after commenting. Thanks for the great tool Ian!

[@znbk5652]

the G shortcut didn't work...

[@ddankhazi]

Not "G", "J". :) G is: Repeat last command

[@znbk5652]

I tried both of them. Didn't work either :)

[@ddankhazi]

It's working if you use it right after the placements. If you click away from the mesh node you need to reactivate the MASH placer (add some object to the existing ones and undo, than the J would work). Cheers, D

[@znbk5652]

Thanks dude.

[@ianwaters6035]

10 points to Dénes! :)

[@RoN43wwq]

too high sensity to the radius by B key.

[@doctorkj5640]

Nice tutorial, thnx... but you should try to speak much slower and without excessive use of "..uuuhmmm eeee ahhhh ooouuhh" because it frickin' annoying....