ICE – Mosaic Test

This study started when a friend asked me how he could create some sort of mosaic effect inside 3Dsmax. He actually followed this technique, wich works ok. However, I thought It would be cool to build a more elegant solution inside XSI using ICE (Interactive Creative Environment).

Below you can find not only the video result but also the ICEtrees:

In the version 1.0 I did simple math using a null to control the displacement behaviour: affected area (XYZ global kinematic compared to each particle point position), falloff (an average between scale X and Z) and intensity (scale Y been the multiplier).
In the version 2.0 a standard compound called modulate by volume did most of the necessary trick: I exploded it and connected some nodes as seen in the ICE Tree below.

Conclusion:
A procedural “FX rig” system gives speed, freedom and flexibility/art-directable, wich means ability to generate new interations on-the-fly with real time feedback.

Cheers!