I have a sphere and a loft object - a tentacle. I want the tentacle to be distributed several times all over the sphere pointing outwards of course. It is just impossible to achieve. I moved pivot of the tentacle and tried both scatter and Particle flow to distribute tentacles, but I can’t figure out way to make them point out from the sphere. anybody has an idea?

Try this out at Boboland.

go to > http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/

then click on the left > Go With The Flow

Then click on > The Hairy Teapot

Create a cone and a sphere in the top view in the cone is not align, alined it to the sphere select the cone go to compound objects then Scatter pick the Distribution object now click the sphere now they are attached as one. slide down until you see duplicates under the source object parameters.

duplicates put about 20 if it to little then add more

in base scale this shows the size of the cones

now go down to the Distribution object parameters

is will give you a opportunite to choose on how the cones are Dispersed just see which one you like go through them all.

perpendicular is switch off the cones will move upward on to the side of the sphere and not look very good at all

duplicates put about 300

change the base scale to about 33.

you notice how all the cones are the same size you can change this. Open the box up called transforms in the scale Z to about 80 you can see what a difference it make to the size of the cones

open the display change the display to about 50% click on the seed button and new this will align them cones

hope this helps

Computer engineer, 3ds max freelancer
3ds max used currantly using max 9 (7, 8)
poser using 8 (5,6,7)
windows xp sp2
512 memory
40 and 80 gb hard drives
sis mirage 3 VGA Card
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Well Anthony.
Try the same think without using standard primitives. Make a cone by lofting a spline. Scatter distributes this object in a totally different way. I kind of got an almost OK result by applying Reset Xform to my loftet object.

thats a new one I did not know you can loft a spline to a cone because it’s a 2d shape when i try Max will not let me to it o’well at least you got what you want Mbi

Computer engineer, 3ds max freelancer
3ds max used currantly using max 9 (7, 8)
poser using 8 (5,6,7)
windows xp sp2
512 memory
40 and 80 gb hard drives
sis mirage 3 VGA Card
Asus motherboard

Make spline, make a circle. Select spline, chose compound objects -> loft. Klick on get shape, klick on circle. Now you have a cylinder. Go to skin, scaling. Drag the last vertex down, adjust the curve if you like. Voila, a cone :-)
I still cant get it work reliably. I’ll try the PFlow approach.

lol thats the to comlicated way lol

Computer engineer, 3ds max freelancer
3ds max used currantly using max 9 (7, 8)
poser using 8 (5,6,7)
windows xp sp2
512 memory
40 and 80 gb hard drives
sis mirage 3 VGA Card
Asus motherboard

A little experimentation reveals that this has to do with the starting with a spline.  It appears Max is placing the distribution normal to the sphere at the center point of the original spline.  Why it does this is likely a programming consideration so there is no solution directly in the method you are trying that I can see.  Try instead using a cone object with multiple bends applied to it.  This worked quite well in my testing.  By playing with the upper and lower limits, you can bend it in multiple directions.  I’m certain there are other ways to achieve this but I do not think you are likely to have success with Loft or Sweep on this.

Sgabriel, you were so close to the solution you should have smelled it!  Yes, creating a spline makes the Pivot point at the center of mass.  But a quick pop into subobject mode can fix that easily.

The path needs to be adjusted so the Pivot is on the end vertex, and it also needs to be rotated 90 degrees.  Draw the path in the top viewport.  Center it on the origin, then go to subobject Spline and and again make sure the center of the spline is at the origin.  Rotate it 90 degrees around the x axis, and move it in the X direction so the end vertex falls over the origin.  Then go to the Front view and move it up so it is again at the origin.  Use this spline as the path, and the tentacles will point straight out.

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA

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Exactly Chris, Sgabriel was so close. Meanwhile I found another approach, easier then yours I think :-)
Make the spline, then: affect pivot only and move the pivot to the bottom of the spline. Loft the spline, apply Reset Xform to the loft. Make the scatter and voila :-D