create multiple instances of a parametric object

hello,

I am more accustomed to procedural languages like C++ than node based programming. I wonder how to achieve this kind of thing (see attached). This is a kind of sea creature coded with openFrameworks.

This creature is made of branches and it is possible to create an environment of multiple of these creatures, each one with its own parameters (curly branches or not, color, size etc…)

Any clue if it is possible with TD and any direction on where to start ?

thanks a lot

the easiest and fastest way to get to where you’re trying to go is probably parenting objects with the vertical wires, and animating their parameters that way.

Eventually you’ll hit a wall with fps from the overhead of each geoCOMP but using exports vs expressions will help a lot, and going from the hundreds into the thousands maybe working out the math via CHOPS for all the movements and then feeding that into a geoCOMP doing geo instancing may take you a lot further (though I imagine this would be harder)

perhaps a hybrid approach could be useful too, depending on what you’re doing. simpler animation via instancing, but other parts can be done as it is in the example!

Good luck
hierarchy Animation.1.toe (4.92 KB)

Hey !

thanks a lot for the explanation and for taking the time to make some example !

I will have a look at it and see if i can figure out some tricks. This is quite a very different approach than what i am used to with procedural languages like C++ so i think i need some time to process it all.

thanks again !

for the record, here is the animation i am looking for

openprocessing.org/sketch/158344

That looks like a great fit for instancing, since the creature is made up of many identical objects.

I would consider one geo per object (or one geo per pass if you need many passes to get the look you need) with instancing for the shapes that make up the creature.

As for the creature - you could probably use a script to make it in a procedural way… animating it could be by chops or more scripting (operating on the chop data)…

FYI - SOPs are by far the most expensive operators, IMO. Instancing is ‘almost free’. Scripting is somewhere in between…

Bruce

ok thanks a lot for those information.

I think i am not skilled enough to deal with scripts yet into TD but this could be a good starting point to play with it.

And for the compute load, i thought SOPs were the lightest way to build visuals ?

Drawing instanced geometry is very efficient, as is 2D drawing operations (TOPs). The expensive part is altering and therefore cooking SOPs.

Bruce