Change Displacement layer seed with Xpresso

[Brian Jones]

The subject says change layer seed with xpresso but you are asking to change a material according to the seed. Which is the control? Put on a material and the displacement changes or change the displacement and the material changes? Or neither?

[Mike Lynam]

Put on a new material and a randomly generated number affects that materials displacement. Specifically a noise layer’s seed in the displacement channel. It is animated based on user input (rate of change).

In thinking I may have to go with Python to get this to work. Since material nodes can’t be relative. But I was thinking maybe someone would know a way around it.

[Brian Jones]

expresso wants to calculate every frame, it might be possible but a python plugin that, given a material as input, generates a displacement (or just sets the seed) would be more what you’re after. Not that I know enough python to be a help…

[Mike Lynam]

Yeah. I can control the seed of the displacement layer with Xpresso but I’m unable to change the Material it’s linked to without physically dragging the the layer icon of the new material into the node updating the link. Wow that’s sounds even more confusing when I type it out. haha. I’ll try investigating into using Python. I’m assuming there’s a way for Python to interact with Xpresso. Thanks Brian!

[Brian Jones]

I wouldn’t think you’d want python to interact with xpresso in this case, only with the material

[Mike Lynam]

Well a random number is being generated in Xpresso based on user input. That random number needs to affect the seed of the current material applied to the object. The user selects a frequency and the random number changes the seed based on that frequency.