Author Topic: How can I make a branching effect? (Read 7422 times)

Palirano · **on:** February 27, 2018, 08:42:32 pm

Hi!
One of the images that inspired me to try Designer was this one, by Chris Hodgson:
https://www.allegorithmic.com/sites/default/files/image08.png
It's a voronoi pattern, but it has tentackles! And they somehow stick out of the vines. Does anyone know how he achieved the effect?

staughost · **Reply #1 on:** March 03, 2018, 08:45:39 pm

If you can afford it Hodgson has all of his famous materials ready to buy on gumroad. Just search it.

rwnet · **Reply #2 on:** March 07, 2018, 02:07:47 am

or you can just do it yourself by using a normal map as a vector map or rotation map (of of those two - I don't remember exactly) for your tile sampler

staughost · **Reply #3 on:** March 10, 2018, 08:30:46 am

Quote from: rwnet on March 07, 2018, 02:07:47 am

or you can just do it yourself by using a normal map as a vector map or rotation map (of of those two - I don't remember exactly) for your tile sampler

I would like to see how that works

undertow · **Reply #4 on:** March 11, 2018, 07:39:02 pm

i'm pretty sure that tile sampler method would limit you to the first single branch, not a true branching effect.

I've been looking around for a real branching solution as well. My only find so far is the foliage generator on the share, though i havent been able to try it yet.

p.toastman · **Reply #5 on:** March 12, 2018, 10:33:03 am

I made a real quick attempt using staughost's suggestion and it seems to work pretty well.

I've attached the sbs file for you to look into. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

justaviking · **Reply #6 on:** March 12, 2018, 06:58:25 pm

There is a very interesting "Leaf" tutorial that might address this issue pretty good. It made procedural "veins" in the leaf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RwdPIG8SQk

divi.cig · **Reply #7 on:** March 14, 2018, 12:27:55 pm

those veins arent procedural though. they are pre-arranged to work for the leaf he's making.

justaviking · **Reply #8 on:** March 14, 2018, 03:50:49 pm

@divi.cig

Is the "leaf" procedural or not? Depends on our definition of the word.

I called it "Procedural" because it is not hand-painted, and it does not use manually-created SVG shapes or anything like that. So it is all parameterized and derived (generated) from the Substance Designer nodes.

But I believe I understand the perspective I think you're coming from. The leaf susbstance does not "magically" branch and fork and subdivide the veins as they move farther away from the point of origin.

Once upon a time, I was trying to make a "brain" substance. (It was rather lame, but I put it on Substance Share anyway. Search for "brain.") I encountered a need for a branching effect, but did not find a great solution.

I, too, would be interested if anyone has an elegant solution.

divi.cig · **Reply #9 on:** March 15, 2018, 09:26:01 am

properly procedural branching requires quite a few things substance designer does not have out of the box. iterations, ability to draw lines between arbitrary positions, etc.

depending on the specific case you can approximate those features and get "good enough" results, but for leaf veins in particular it becomes very specific and complex, which is why we opted for a different software at work to generate our leaves.

Palirano · **Reply #10 on:** April 26, 2018, 11:55:12 am

@justaviking
I think your brain was actually the first thing I downloaded from Substance Share. Still think it's pretty cool-looking.
But I also think I might have made the procedural branching effect you were looking for, using p.toastman's method, but iterating it twice more.

justaviking · **Reply #11 on:** April 26, 2018, 05:29:10 pm

Quote from: Palirano on April 26, 2018, 11:55:12 am

@justaviking
I think your brain was actually the first thing I downloaded from Substance Share. Still think it's pretty cool-looking.

So that's where it went. May I have my brain back when you're done with it?

Seriously though, thank you for the kind words.

Quote

But I also think I might have made the procedural branching effect you were looking for, using p.toastman's method, but iterating it twice more.

Very cool. I'll have to study that in more detail. Thank you very much for sharing.

michael_11 · **Reply #12 on:** April 28, 2018, 02:25:43 pm

I have been struggling to create any kind of nice branching effect as well. Anyone familiar with the term "self similarity"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-similarity

I would love to see a self similarity node, which allows us to use the principle of self-similiarity, which is... branching off smaller versions of the parent branch

this would be incredibly helpful to create cracks, btw.

edit: tried to create a uservoice idea, but it seems like allegorithmic has a hard time handling my many awesome ideas

so I posted a feature request instead: https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=23682.new#new