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Let’s examine the magnet SOP.
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The magnet SOP is an extremely
powerful operator in Touch
Designer, but it can also be
difficult to understand and
implement properly.
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A magnet SOP must work in
conjunction a metaball,
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and the relationship between the
metaball and the magnet will
determine the nature of the
effect generated by the magnet
SOP.
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In this example we will deform a
sphere SOP with a magnet SOP.
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The transform parameters of the
metaball SOP are the primary
influences used to drive the
effectiveness of the magnet SOP.
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The core operators in this
tutorial network are the sphere,
metaball, and magnet.
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The additional operators are
simply for visualization
purposes.
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We want to see the effect the
magnet has on the input sphere,
and at the same time, see the
metalball which is driving the
effect.
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I’ve wired the outputs of the
magnet and the metaball to point
SOPs, and changed their display
parameters.
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I’ve changed their colors, and
reduced their alphas, so that
when we render the SOPs we can
see them as they overlap.
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I’ve created a TOP network
starting with a render TOP.
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I’ve added a camera and a light,
as well as an over TOP, so we
can place the render on a white
background.
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It can be challenging to locate
and visualize objects in 3d
space.
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By adjusting the parameters of
this network, we can keep track
of the effects of the magnet
SOP.
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I use a slider component to
uniformly adjust the scale of
the metaball in 3 dimensions.
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As I boost the scale, we can
immediately see the effect of
the magnet.
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The magnet, which is effectively
the input sphere, is green. The
metaball is purple.
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The relationship between the
transforms of the magnet and
metaball create the deformations
of the input sphere.
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As with a physical magnet, the
input geometry can be partially
or completely transformed.
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For the magnet SOP to work, the
relationship between the magnet
and metaball must be at least
slightly offset.
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As you can see, adjusting this
offset in either the metaball or
the magnet, will create
variations of the magnet’s
deformation of the input sphere.
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As I adjust the offset of the
magnet, the metaball scale will
cause the input sphere to be
deformed in the direction of the
magnet.
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A transform X offset of positive
.1 will cause the sphere to move
or deform to the right.
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An offset of 0 will have no
effect, as there is no
relational offset between the
magnet and metaball.
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The smaller the offset, the
smaller the effect.
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