Techniques Using SOPs

Rotate to Vector and the Blend SOP

Rather than calculating bearing manually, you may want to take advantage of another feature of instancing — Rotate to Vector. Another way we can think about this type of vector is to use the normal’s for a given point. In this example, we use the normals from our SOPs to describe the rotation of our instances. The normals from our Surface Operators can be retrieved with a sopTo CHOP.

The other technique at play here is to use a blend SOP to morph one SOP into another. While this is a non-typical use for the blend SOP, the application for instances is interesting. The blend SOP allows for multiple inputs — so while this example moves from the sphere to the long form grid arrangement, it would also be possible to have many different configurations of geometry that you’re blending between.

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Tested in TouchDesigner099 2020.23680

Updated 06.03.20
Matthew Ragan
Zoe Sandoval