Hi,

I`m coming from maya/max background and I`m wondering what would be the best way to make a pile of particles (or instances). I know it`s quickly doable with RBD but I`m interested in particles approach.

I tried POP network with INTERACT node inside and then COPY to geometry but I`m not getting realistic behavior. Thanks!

p.s.
here is a quick test I did in maya with nParticles and instances, I`m trying to get something like that in Houdini

The subject of circle packing is something you should be looking at to solve your problem. If you do a search here and odforce you will find plenty of threads on it.

Rob

I think this is closer to FLIP than circle packing… In any case, there's no off the shelf particle operator to do that, you'd probably have to script your own.
Why does it need to be particle based though?

Cheers

thanks guys for reply, yes I think FLIP should be closer to what I`m looking for. I need particles because I need goal (follow) behavior. Maybe I could redefine my question, is it possible to COPY geometry on particles and then apply RBD collision on top of that via DOP`s?
thanks!

zs2010
is it possible to COPY geometry on particles and then apply RBD collision on top of that via DOP`s?

In SOPs, you can use the copy SOP to do just that and bring the resulting geo as RBD fractured object with a glue value of 0. That would make the objects completely separate at the smallest impact.
Alternatively you can bring your points or particles into DOPs as an RBD point object (not a 100% sure of the name, but should be something like this) and use some expressions to vary the copied object shape and size then let it rip!

Cheers

zs2010
…is it possible to COPY geometry on particles and then apply RBD collision on top of that via DOP`s?…

you may also take a look at example from docs called “popswithrbdcollision”

got it, thanks. pop`s imported into dop via rbd fractured object with no glue.

cheers