Randomize “Sequence Replicator”, Motion 5

[Andy Neil]

[Jay Carr] “I have a animation I’m working on that involves about 400 stick figures that I have inside of a replicator. I need them to change in a random order.”

By “change”, do you mean animate? What you’re asking depends a lot on what you’re actually trying to do. Replicators are best when used to create patterns of things. Emitters are typically better for things that need to move. A lot of times, you can use either interchangeably, but other times, one or the other is specifically needed.

If you’re animating a stick figure and you want 400 of them to animate, but not synchronized, what I’d try is using a replicator in concert with a clone.

Animate the stick figure in a group. Clone the group. Replicate the clone. In the replicator tab, make sure play frames is selected and then click Random Start Frame to have all your replicates animating separate from each other.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Jay Carr]

Well, let me describe the animation in a bit more detail.

Basically I’m creating a large crowd of people out of stick figures (I actually ended up using 1800). They basically look like a giant crowd. They are basically a huge group of “none customers”. So, to animate them turning into customers I was going to do three things.

1) Have them turn another color.
2) Have them bounce up and down like they have jumped
3) Have them wave an arm (might cut that last one.)

I just don’t want them to do these things by row, but rather at random. So, somebody in the 14th row, then in 4th, then in 8th, etc etc. Just at random.

If that could work with a particle system that would be great, I just can’t see how that would work.

[Jay Carr]

Ah, it would appear that Google, and Mark Spencer, are my friends (sorry Andy, I’ve used your tuts before too though). Found an old tutorial that mentioned the “Shuffle Order” box. Ticked it, problem solved. For some reason my eyes were not seeing it… We all have those days, I’m sure :-).