hexagonal tile - but option for diamond shape?

[grue]

i love this video and have used it several times! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PloJFtGz8pU

but it's showing me to select the hexagonal padding macro.

is there a way to tile diamond shaped tiles?

in my screen shot, the green are the tiles in question

[Dragan]

Not sure if you need empty diamond spaces, if so just turn off the checkbox Full/Sparse.

[grue]

i need a solid fill, so no empty diamond spaces.

so what you did here then, was create two generators and use the same spline area, but one was offset to fill-in the holes.  then you exported the parameters to adjust. nice. thank you!

[Dragan]

That's right. Sometimes there is no need for "heavy" conditions/transforms/composing...
Making more generators are not necessarily a bad thing and it will not impact the speed/memory...
 

[grue]

hey dragan, out of curiosity, in your example you had a Transform5 for the 1st Array (top), then two transforms for the 2nd array (bottom). why is that?  also, i see the x size and y size divide by N macros - so i think you were just setting it up to take whatever size the tile was and offset (translate) kind of "automatically" based on size.

I was playing around with it, and in an attempt to simplify, i was able to use 1 transform on my 2nd array to move the diamond tile into the gaps and it worked pretty well. mine i had to manually set translation (which is where yours did the "auto" based on the divide by N macros.

thanks,

[Dragan]

Hi
The "Transform5" you are referring to is to make Y offset. Depending on orientation for the Segment or A2SGenerator which is X/Y Extended, offsets for Z and Y-axis of Main Generator sometimes move in the same direction. So I used the Transform operator to simulate the General Y offset, but it has to be on both Generators to make them synchronized.  (try to export parameter for General Y Offset) 

You are right about X Size and Y Size. Those are exported as Attributes from the Segment node and divided by 2 so you can use any size as a Segment input Segment. Although it is better to add one Transform Operator after the Segments node and then export Attributes.

It is good practice to use parametric relations wherever you can. Even for the simplest Expression, it is better to extract the Parameter (even as Constant) if there is a chance for some changes in future workflow. This can be very useful if the Style gets bigger. You will be able to find certain parameter and replace it with another Type or even Expression. 

And always set/check/respect Numeric Type (Integer/Float/Units) because those could make huge problems, eg. If you forgot to set some numeric parameter to Unit and leave it as Integer you could end up with some size issues on Generators Result thinking that your Style is wrong where is just a mathematic result of mixing Integer+Units/Floats. Also, not setting the right type can result in different scaled or deformed geometry if you share the RC Generator with someone who is working in different Units.

Regards

[grue]

thank you this is very helpful!

funny because i found that Z and Y moves in the same direction on one of the re-creations i tried LOL but i will approach it they way you did from now on.