Operators

TAB to open the operator Window (TAB again to go trough the tabs)

For each family
Darker Shade : Generator
Lighter Shade : Filter

Cable
Cable can only be plug between objects of the same family When they are animated, they are streaming data (cooking)

Links
Links are grey lines with moving arrow They can be between different operator family

To render and SOP to TOP (going from 3D to 2D) You'll need 4 elements

Input your SOP Composition in the Geometry (For this you need to add the geo by right clicking the output of the SOP) Chose where is the light coming from by tweaking the light parameters Chose where the "eye" is by tweaking the Camera parameters

Modeling Leaf

Create a line, Bend it and Mirror it

You should have an error on the chopTo, it is caused by the difference of point in the line and in the pattern

The Pattern and the line should now have the same number of point and a sine should appear in the chopTo (If not, verify that you are looking at the right axis)

We now have a way to bend the line, let's custom the pattern to have a more leafy shape

Once the half of the leaf have the correct shape, we can double it

To fill the frame, you can use skin or polypatch, polypatch allows for more precise control of the 3D geometry. To see the modification you can use the w shortcut to toggle the wireframe view.

Tweaking

Interesting parameter to tweak to go closer to a flower petal : Pattern Taper Decay & Amplitude, disable the reverse Play around by using the math chop and adding modulation, for an oak leaf, you could add sine and noise to alter the edge of the model

To Gain More Control, After the Attribute Create

Multiply Petal to make a flower

We need to point the normals in the right direction

Now leaf should be facing outward If the normals aren't correctly sized add a facet before the the null and toggle Make Normals unit Lenght

The Number Of division of the Circle let you set the number of petals,

Add texture

  • Add a SOP texture after the Attribute Create

Next we will need a Render Setup

To render and SOP to TOP (going from 3D to 2D) You'll need 4 elements

  • COMP Geometry (What is the form)
  • COMP Camera (Where is the eye)
  • COMP light (Where is the light coming from)
  • TOP Render

  • Input your SOP Composition in the Geometry (For this you need to add the geo by right clicking the output of the SOP)

  • Chose where is the light coming from by tweaking the light parameters
  • Chose where the "eye" is by tweaking the Camera parameters

You can now toggle the blue circle on the render to view the result

  • Add MAT Phong
    • Drag and drop it on the geo, select `Material
  • Add SOP Noise
    • Terminate with a Null
    • Drag and Drop the Null on the phong, select Diffusion Map
    • Set the Noise Period to have the wanted gradient on the leaf

Colors

  • right click on the cable between the Noise and the Null, add a TOP Lookup
  • Add a TOP Ramp and connect it to the second input of the lookup
    • Set saturation and hue to taste for a leafy color (green / orange gradient for exemple)
note from this video
You can download my project here.
  • create uv map of the image
    • use a ramp with the same resolution as the image
    • Ramp -> in1 Reorder
    • Ramp -> in1 Flip (in flop mode)
    • Flip -> in2 Reorder
    • Reorder/output green : input2
    • red - green - blue - alpha
    • Image -> Level
    • Level -> in3 Reorder (High B set 3D depth)
    • Reorder/Output Blue : Input3
    • Reorder -> null (named particle_source)
  • Select -> in2 Particlegpu
    • Select/TOP : image (drag & drop)
  • Particlegpu (Palette/tools/)
    • /Material/Material : line
    • DisplayBounds : Off
    • Smaller particle
      • Particle Size Min : ~0.05
      • Particle Size Max : ~0.2
    • More Particle
      • Birth : 2000
    • Life and Life variance : 4
    • Set turbulence to taste in /forces
  • Adding a feedback network with some blur can be an interesting next step.


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