This week I worked primarily on creating the simulation for the seed pod. I used a combination of Pyro and Vellum soft bodies to create the effect. This simulation shows all the functionality of the set up and some tweaks.
Constraint Network
DOP Network
I imported an alembic from maya and separated the mesh into its individual components. I then made two types of vellum soft body objects, strut softbodies (green box) that were applied to the petals, and much firmer Tetrahedral softbodies (black box) for the stem, center, and seeds. The pink box is the glue constraints that connect all the individual elements and the decides how firmly they are connected. The final constraint node is a pin node that is applied to stem. This pins the points on the stem in place until enough force is applied to it to break. The strength of the breaking threshold is determined by the sort and point wrangle nodes, which apply an attribute to the points on the mesh. This attribute is determined by the proximity to the end of the stem that is connected to the pod. The connecting point breaks at force of 0 and the other end breaks at point .002. I used a field force that is referencing the velocity field generated from the pyro sim in order to have the vellum interact with the pyro.
I also rendered the pod shader on a ball to see how it held up in a different situation. I think it did a good job besides the SSS radius which needs to be changed based on the scale, but that was expected.
