Parent an object to an arbitrary vertex of another object?

[skinnytorus]

Hey, guys.
This may sound stupid, but I can not figure out how to parent an object to an arbitrary vertex of another object.
I guess it has to do with instancing but there's no such mask as "vertex number". Or maybe I'd better take a closer look at the square wave function mask? Is there a special trick for this?

Thank you,
Skinny

[francis]

Hello @skinnytorus,

The main difficulty is that this would require downloading position info from the GPU in order to impact a placement that's computed inside the CPU, and this software piece is for the moment missing. I guess that there is only very little interest if it doesn't work with the 3d modifiers (that are mostly computed in the GPU), so this needs developping a custom new placement.

I relabeled the post as 'Features'

Best,

Francis.

[skinnytorus]

Hey, Francis.
Glad to hear from you. But why not implement it as a sort of instancing modifier mask then? The existing modifiers handle point positions without a problem. All we need then is an array of selected point positions which may be selected by a range of point numbers to which we then can instance the object and hide the original. It's just a mask anyway. What do you think?

Skinny

[francis]

In other terms, you'd like to have a new 3D mask called "Vertex Id" behaving the same as "Group Id" but to select vertices instead of vertex groups? That should be something doable...

I'm really curious on what you're doing with Smode. You should post us some images here one of these days

[skinnytorus]

In other terms, you'd like to have a new 3D mask called "Vertex Id" behaving the same as "Group Id" but to select vertices instead of vertex groups? That should be something doable...

Exactly! I'm fascinated by the way Houdini handles points. For me Smode is a sort of cross-breed between Houdini and After Effects with bias towards the latter, and accessing vertices directly seems quite natural. In fact, I'm looking for ways to connect pairs of points with ends on different animated objects to achieve a lightning arc/bolt effect such as this: https://vimeo.com/263107417.

I'm really curious on what you're doing with Smode. You should post us some images here one of these days

Alas... Nothing is finished yet. Just testing the limits of what can be achieved in Smode. Somehow I'm not interested in commonplace c4d-style mograph stuff. Since my obsession has always been somewhere in between organic growth, venation, particles, and volumes, I beat around that bush. But sure! I will post my stuff once I kick it in a more presentable shape