Population Tool Context

The Population Tool Context provides an easy way to create Population Tool Locators in Maya.

CREATION

Golaem Shelf:
Golaem Menu: Population Tool
MEL command: glmPopulationToolCmd;

Tool SETTINGS

The Population Tool Context Settings window is divided in three panels.

Populate in Custom Shape

This panel defines the shape of the new Population Tool Locator.

Populate in Custom Shape layout

	The center point shape creates particles in a grid centered on a point clicked inside the viewport. This shape allows modifying rows and columns, you can use it for designing squads in a battle scene for example
	The quad shape creates particles in a quad by clicking and dragging inside the viewport
	The polygon shape creates particles in a polygon, drawn by clicking inside the viewport. This shape needs three points at least. You can remove the last point by pressing the backspace key or combining mouse left click and Ctrl key. The relative Population Tool Locator will be created by pressing the enter key or mouse middle click
	The circle shape creates particles in a circle by clicking a center point and dragging the radius inside the viewport
	The triangle shape creates particles in an isosceles triangle by clicking and dragging inside the viewport
	The sphere shape creates particles in a sphere by clicking a center point and dragging the radius inside the viewport. You can use this shape for placing flocking birds, for example
	Free Place mode: add slots on a terrain or edit them by clicking and dragging in the viewport. See Free Place Options below.

Populate in Selection

This panel provides two solutions to populate the current Maya selection.

Populate in Selection layout

	This tool creates a center point shape placed on each selected objects or components (edges, vertices, faces, particles in component mode...). In this mode, the Population Tool slots will orient in the same direction than the objects or component. If populated on particles on component mode, it will read the orientation from a vector PPAttribute named glmSrcDirection which represents the forward direction of the slot (1,0,0 for X facing). You can use this solution for placing characters on every seat of a stadium, for example. Populate selection in vertex mode (left) and face mode (right)
	This tool creates a polygon shape according to the selected non-volumetric mesh borders. The new Population Tool Locator is automatically connected to the relative mesh, and matches the mesh geometry even after modifying it. This mode only works with surface polygon meshes without holes. Polygon shape matches the bent mesh geometry
	This tool creates slots around the selected curves, the row count can be configured as well as slot distance and noise. If the curve is part of a Traffic Locator, the information from the traffic will be used : right / left lane count and separation. The population tool will also avoid to populate on crossings.It makes it easy to populate scenes once the traffic is setup. Polygon shape matching a standard curve, and population of a traffic scene via populate on curve tool
	This tool scatters slots around a random position on the mesh. The base position can be picked randomly every x samples (see Scatter Attributes). The slots are spanned randomly via a poisson disc law, applied in 3D. Works best with Orient On Ground Normal enabled. Slots scattered on a sphere, with "orient normal on ground" option ON Scatter population works on any geometry, here a Nefertiti head model
	This tool uses particles / nParticles emitted from Maya emitters and adds Golaem population to them. The base object, to select, is the particle / nParticle system The count of particles transformed in Golaem entities must be set as population tool count You may need to set the start frame of the crowdManager / crowdField one frame later (eg 2 against default 1), due to some specific nParticles inner mechanics PopulationTool on a nParticle system, limited to 50 first particles

It is important to notice that all geometries used to populate on must be frozen before painting on it.

Entity Types

All Entity Types registered in the Crowd Manager are listed in this panel. Selected Entity Types will be used for the Slots in the Population Tool Locator.

Entity Types layout without and with Entity Types

Notice that if you miss this step you will still be able to add or remove Entity Types during the Population Tool Locator configuration.

Terrain Locator

Select Terrain Locator

Select the Terrain Locator on which to place the new Population Tool Locator and its slots.

Free Place Options and Hotkeys

The Free Place mode enables placing slots by clicking and dragging the left mouse button in the viewport. The Entity Type and Rendering Type of the new slot are determined by the Next Entity Type and Next Rendering Type parameters (see table below). To finish the Population Tool Locator, press Enter.

Adding slots in Free Place Mode

To remove the last created slot, press Backspace or Delete. If there are no more slots to erase, this will erase the Population Tool Locator.

Removing slots in Free Place Mode

A circular brush can be used for additional functions. To change the radius of the brush, click and drag with the middle mouse button, or use the Brush Radius slider.

Changing the Brush Radius in Free Place Mode

To use the different brush functions, press and hold the Shift key before clicking and dragging. Control + Shift + clicking and dragging will remove the effects of the brush in some cases.

Brush Radius	The radius of the brush. It can also be changed by clicking and dragging with the middle mouse button.
Brush Tool	The brush function to use: Rotate: rotates the slots inside the brush, according to the Rotate Mode and the Rotate Noise parameters. Pressing Shift while dragging to create a new slot will immediately orient it, no matter the Brush Tool mode. To reset the slot orientations, use Control + Shift + click/drag Rotate in Look At mode (left) and in Relative mode (right) Set Scale: sets the scale of the slots inside the brush, according to the Scale and the Scale Noise parameters. The scale takes into account the Entity Type scale and the Crowd Manager Node scale. To reset the slot scales, use Control + Shift + click/drag Set Scale Set Entity/Rendering Type: sets the Entity Type and Rendering Type of the slots inside the brush according to the Next Entity Type and Next Rendering Type parameters. Set Entity/Rendering Type Move: move the slots inside the brush Move Erase: erase the slots inside the brush. Keep in mind that this can change Entity Types and Rendering Types if they were set to Automatic. Erase
Rotate Mode	The rotate mode to use. Only available when Brush Tool is set to Rotate. Look At: rotate each slot inside the brush towards the mouse pointer Relative: rotate each slot inside the brush in the same direction relative to the mouse pointer
Rotate Noise	The noise to apply to the slot orientations in Rotate mode.
Scale	The scale of the slot.
Scale Noise	The noise to apply to the slot scales in Scale mode.
Next Entity Type	The Entity Type of the next slot to place, or the Entity Type to set with the brush in Set Entity/Rendering Type mode. Only the Entity Types mapped to the current Population Tool Locator are available. When set to Automatic, the Entity Type is determined according to the weights on the Population Tool Locator.
Next Rendering Type	The Rendering Type of the next slot to place, or the Rendering Type to set with the brush in Set Entity/Rendering Type mode. Only the Rendering Types of the Next Entity Type are available. When set to Automatic, the Rendering Type is determined according to the weights on the selected Entity Type.

Golaem 9.1.1

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