3D & SimulationCloners
Mesh Cloner
Scatters the source across a target mesh: on its surface, vertices, polygon centres, or edge centres.
The Mesh Cloner uses a second mesh as the distribution. Clones sit on the target and can align to its normals.
- Distribute On surface, vertices, polygons, or edges
- Align To Normal, Color From Target
- Found in the node graph under Cloners → Cloners
The image on the right is the example patch itself. Drag and drop it onto the app, or load it with File → Load, to open the full graph. Boxes scattered on a Torus Knot Primitive.
Inputs and outputs
| Port | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Source | Surface | The geometry to repeat. A texture here makes billboard quads. |
| Target Surface | Surface | The mesh to distribute across. |
| Effector 1 … 4 | Effector | Cloner effectors; the four ports concatenate. |
| Origin Object | Surface | A Null to parent the array to. |
| Surface | Surface | The array. |
Parameters
- Distribute On — Random Surface (default), Vertices, Polygon Centres, Edge Centres.
- Clone Count (default 500), Vertex Stride (1–64, default 1).
- Align To Normal (default on), Color From Target (default off).
Per-clone block
- Source Sequence — with several sources wired: Cycle (round-robin) (default), Blocks (even split), Random, Per Row, Per Column.
- Clone Scale X / Y / Z and Clone Uniform Scale (0.01–10, default 1), Clone Rotate Heading / Pitch / Roll (default 0).
- Billboards Face Camera (default on) — for texture sources.
- Position X / Y / Z, Rotate Heading / Pitch / Roll, Scale X / Y / Z, Uniform Scale — the array's own transform.
Every slider has a per-parameter animation bar, so it can be animated, audio driven, or MIDI mapped.
Examples
Spikes — a Cone source, Align To Normal on, Distribute On Vertices.
Troubleshooting
Clones float — the target is being deformed after the cloner reads it. Move the deformer before the target port.