Footsteps in gravel

[Darwin Ceballos]

Hi. Need some tips on how to make footsteps in FP gravel preset, thanks. D

[Paul Roberts]

Hi Darwin,

Thanks for the interesting question. Before I take a look at this I wanted to ask if the footsteps are animated?

Many thanks,

Paul

[Darwin Ceballos]

Hi Paul,

There's no need for animated footsteps.

Thank's
Darwin

[Paul Roberts]

Hi Darwin,

There are a ways to go about this but in this case I've solved it by creating a new gravel patch that contains a footstep imprint. This patch can then be use inside another Forest object and each step placed manually using tree edit mode:





In this way we can use small individual gravel objects to get the required definition within the patch, but then place patches to avoid having to individually scatter millions and millions of pebbles to fill a large area.

Then, to fill in the remainder of the area, add a new forest object and pick a corresponding gravel preset designed to fill a large area. Open the Areas rollout and add the Footsteps Forest object shown in the screen grab above as an exclude area. Adjust the scale value to slightly overlap the two forest objects.





In the screenshot above the footsteps are shown in red/purple and the main gravel area is in green. Note how the two slightly overlap. The final result looks like this. The footstep impression is slightly exaggerated for clarity.



Because the two forests are referencing one another, the nice thing about this technique is that you can easily update the position of the footsteps and the large area of gravel will update automatically.

I hope that helps, please take a look at the attached file and let me know if you have any further questions.

Many thanks,

Paul

[TL1895]

Wow, you guys never cease to amaze

[Darwin Ceballos]

That's awsome, Paul 
Thanks again for amazing support.
Darwin

[Shawn Olson]

Very cool.

Since Paul asked about the need for animated footsteps, I'd like to change the answer above to Yes and see Paul's answer.

[Paul Roberts]

Hi Shawn,

This could be done by animating the single footprint item which is then used as in the example above to place each step. The stones will follow the surface as long as Surface Updaye > Auto is active.



To control the animation after it has been scattered you could then use Forest's Frame From Map animation mode and animate a gradient ramp across the surface to control the apperance of the footprints in sequence.

As this technique us a little more complex we'd like to to give a more thorough explanation in a future tutorial.

I hope that helps.

Many thanks,

Paul

[Shawn Olson]

Very cool. I am going to play around with this. Thanks for sharing!