Forces

Overview Video

The two forces available are wind and turbulence.

Wind

Enable

Clicking in the check box activates the wind settings.

Animation will only begin once play is clicked.

Wind Strength

The Wind Strength slider can be taken to 100%, but manually inputting the numbers means that you can select a wind strength of well over 100%, to simulate gale forces.

Wind Strength Variation

This slider needs to be above 0 (zero) % in order to see any movement in the animation.

Animation to demonstrate the Wind Strength Variation parameter, with 25% on the left, raised to 100% on the right.

Turbulence

Turbulence adds a more random movement, once play has been clicked.

Again, the Turbulence slider will take this up to 100%, but you can manually input a higher value.

The system is set, as a default, to target the turbulence more heavily on the leaves of the plant.

These settings can be altered in the Level Options settings, below.

Animation to illustrate the effect of the Turbulence slider, set at 50% on the left and raised to 300% on the right.

Turbulence Scale

Selecting higher amounts will mean that the different layers (Trunk, Branch and Leaves) will move together more cohesively.

Lower amounts will result in different layers moving at different rates, due to the smaller noise size.

Animation to demonstrate the use of the Turbulence Scale setting. On the left this is set at 5%, while on the right it is raised up to 750%.

Noise Type

There are four different options for Noise Type: Turbulence, Wavy Turbulence, Noise and FBM (Fractional, or Fractal, Brownian Motion).

This animation highlights the four different Noise Type settings, shown above each tree.

Octaves

Increases and decreases the detail of the Noise Type setting, with a smoother animation at a lower value, getting more frenetic as the Octave level is raised.

Animation to show the effect of Octaves values of 1, on the left, and 3, on the right.

Frequency Global

This slider adjusts how the Noise Type is animating, with global frequency affecting all layers of the plant together.

Higher frequencies will animate more quickly.

Lower frequencies will produce a much slower animation.

This animation illustrates the effect of Frequency Global settings of 50% on the left, then raised to 200% on the right.

Frequency Leaves

This setting simply targets the frequency level of animation in the leaves alone.

Animation to demonstrate the Frequency Leaves setting, with 10% on the left and 100% on the right.

Direction

Dragging the slider, or inputting a value, will change the direction of the wind up to 360 degrees.

Direction from Object

You can also use a scene object as the source of the wind direction, by simply inputting an object into the link field.

The wind direction will always be dictated by the +Z direction of the object, as with the example Null shown here.

This animation shows the effect of using a Null as the source of wind direction.

Seed

This setting drives both the Wind Strength Variation and the Noise Type settings.

Changing the Seed value will give you different looks in both still frames and animation.

Level Options

In this section, you can select where the forces are being targeted, altering the weight towards a particular area, using the sliders.

This animation demonstrates the effect of the Trunk Strength, Branch Strength and Leaf Strength sliders.

Leaf Strength

This is set to 100%, by default, but can be raised or lowered to your desired level.

Branch Strength

This is set to 50% and, again, you can alter this with the slider or manually.

Trunk Strength

The Trunk Strength value is set at a default of 30% and can be altered, as above.

Level Weight

You can adjust this curve to create a personalized setting for your force, but you must first set both the Branch Strength and the Trunk Strength at 100%.

The X-axis begins on the left side (0,0), with the bottom of the trunk and ends with the top of the plant (at 1,0).

In this animation, the Level Weight spline curve is being manipulated to demonstrate custom settings available.

Loop Options

This option helps you achieve a seamless animation, once you reach the end of the Timeline.

Loop Time

Inputting a value one frame higher than the end of the Timeline will ensure you have a perfect loop, with no jumping in your animation.