An artist came to my desk yesterday asking how to do what I felt was a simple task, but after getting 80% through it I ran into a speed bump realizing it needed custom scripting or other advanced tools to fully resolve to satisfaction. I had to give him a procedure that was 'good enough'. This problem has multiple solutions, but I am curious how others would solve it:
The problem: Artist must create an asteroid belt around a planet. The asteroids are likely 2D sprites which must face the camera and tumble as they orbit, but could be 3D objects as well. Asteroids must vary in size, shape, and animation speed (linear as well as rotational). Asteroids cannot collide with anything. Movement is generally slow - like a screen saver for your computer desktop. Asteroid positions are jittered within the belt. The question: Dispersing objects into a ring is fairly straightforward through a number of techniques, but how do you apply the random jitter to the object positions? The rules: - Cannot use ICE - Cannot use custom scripts, custom operators, or shaders. - Must only use tools out of the box that a junior or staff level artist would know how to use. - Must be able to create the asteroid belt, from scratch to completion, in less than 30 minutes - and be iteration friendly to react to art director feedback. - Ideally, the belt could be made a child of the planet in encompasses so it can be reoriented with respect to changes in the planet's size/shape/tilt/orbit. - Final output must be able to exist with full integrity on its own in a vacuum. Cannot not have dependencies on custom code, external assets, or special case logic. - Asteroid belt fits within the default grid as seen in the scene camera. Think torus with diameter 40 SI units, and cross section of roughly 3 SI Units diameter Ready.....GO! Matt
