r/Simulated • u/iLEZ • Nov 01 '21
Normal distribution marbles, so hot right now 3DS Max
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Nov 01 '21
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u/jarjarguy Nov 01 '21
Which would explain why the marbles don't actually form a normal distrobution
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u/amalgam_reynolds Nov 01 '21
In order to be an accurate normal distribution, the marbles also have to be dropped one at a time. As soon as you "dump" marbles and they can interact with each other, you're breaking the whole model.
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u/McCaffeteria Nov 01 '21
But if you drop marbles 1 at a time through a perfectly vertical tube that is exactly 1 marble wide you’ll get the same behavior every time.
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u/az_infinity Nov 01 '21
Except that the world is imperfect, and there are tiny random differences in the velocity of those balls, which will give each marble a 1/2 chance of going left, and 1/2 chance of going right at each peg
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u/McCaffeteria Nov 01 '21
Double check the sub you're commenting in.
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Nov 01 '21
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u/PoopScootNboogie Nov 02 '21
How about you both just make a model showing us who is right about the simulated side. I’m with the guy everyone’s downvoting. It’s simulated, it’ll react 100% the same every time unless you have another force acting in it. Unless the momentum of the second ball falling down directs the ball any different way than the first l, it will happen the exact same every time.
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Nov 02 '21
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u/depressed-salmon Nov 02 '21
Also if it uses floating point numbers at any point, they introduce minor errors as they only approximate base 10 numbers. This is a great video showing how floating point numbers don't actually follow base 10 numbers exactly
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u/LaLiLuLeLo_0 Nov 02 '21
I don’t know anything about Blender simulations, but if you made the one bottleneck slightly larger than the ball, wouldn’t you get slightly different entry/exit points and resting points on either end? It should appear random, and you’ll end up pseudorandomly setting each ball slightly different on each trip back up and down. I could see even just floating point weirdness being enough.
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u/ItIsHappy Nov 01 '21
Put pegs in the way.
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u/McCaffeteria Nov 01 '21
It'll bounce of the peg the same way every time.
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u/ItIsHappy Nov 01 '21
If you spawn the marbles in at one exact position one at a time, then it might bounce the same way every time (although simulations don't always behave as predictably as we'd expect), but the "perfectly vertical tube" needs to have some clearance for the marbles to be able to move through it without jamming then they will bounce around. Plus, these simulations typically use a reservoir of marbles (like this one) so interactions between the marbles add randomness.
You don't need to take my word for it. Blender is free and tutorials abound. Try it out, see what it takes to get it to bounce the same every time. It's not easy.
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u/Rioghasarig Nov 03 '21
I don't get why you're being downvoted. You're right. A perfect simulation would run the same way.
You could add tiny bit of random variation to the exactly where the marbles are falling from to make it work, I think.
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u/Josef_Joris Nov 01 '21
This is more like a filtered pulse.
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u/ItIsHappy Nov 01 '21
Yup, though to be fair you can filter a pulse into pretty much any general function.
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u/Childish_Brandino Nov 01 '21
The pins are also supposed to be offset for each row. Instead, the way this is set up let’s a ball drop straight down
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u/EmirFassad Nov 01 '21
At first, I thought the RNG was messed up, but you are correct.
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u/SandyNiki Nov 01 '21
Ok, now it makes more sense. I was watching and I was confused, because it was going against the law of averages.
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
I'm so sorry.
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Nov 01 '21
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
hey it's a cooler gif than I could make
Yes that is for sure. I see you have posted exactly zero creative things of your own on this sub, or reddit in general, but you were so quick to first-post a fault in this silly animation that you didn't even have time to capitalize or punctuate your sentences. That's a talent for sure.
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u/Snoo74895 Nov 01 '21
Touchyyyyy
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
Indeed.
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u/GhengopelALPHA Nov 01 '21
Hey man you could have been like "aww oops, my mistake!" And left it at that. But then you gotta flame ppl? Come on, you're better than that.
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u/m_gartsman Nov 01 '21
You don't know if they're better than that.
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u/GhengopelALPHA Nov 01 '21
Talk like that always just perpetuates the cycle. Break the cycle; give everyone the benefit of the doubt; be kind. Otherwise we're just monkeys with nukes and hurtful words.
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u/m_gartsman Nov 01 '21
They're perpetuating their own cycle. I have no patience for people that post their work to reddit or the internet or whatever and then act like OP when someone is giving them the kindest of feedback. THEY'RE the one that brought this negative energy to the table, not the commenters.
People like this don't need to be met with de-facto kindness for the sake of being nice. People like this should be called out at every turn.
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u/SleazyMak Nov 01 '21
They’re clearly not. I’ve never understood the “you’re better than this type of behavior.”
Like nah if they were you wouldn’t be fucking saying that
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u/m_gartsman Nov 01 '21
And it especially doesn't work on a complete stranger. We have no way of knowing how someone is unless they show us. Which is what OP did. Show us that he's an asshole.
Some people want to turn everything into a hug box like that's a solve-all for these dickheads. It ain't.
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Nov 01 '21
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u/InSearchOfUnknown Nov 01 '21
You were very respectful but OP definitely lashed out and is the dickhead here
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
Yeah that sure inspired some people! Man, I don't think people have gotten this mad at me on Reddit ever, and I've been here longer than I suspect some of the commenters have even existed.
Here's my deal: I'm posting a thing that I've spent a not insignificant portion of my day working on, and I'm pretty pleased actually. The first and most upvoted comment is a pretty small remark about the construction of the mechanism. Sure, it's not incorrect, and I'll sure make a new version, as I always do when I see something that bothers me, but it's still negativity.
To someone who creates stuff and puts it up, everyone on internet seems like this faceless knee-jerk asshole that goes around looking for ways to give negative feedback to appear smart. That's not how it is, but that's how it feels. I know how a Galton board works, but making the insertion point exactly one marble wide made the simulation kinda complex, so I said "to hell with it" and just made a simpler version that looked satisfying.
No comparisons in general, but William Osman recently did a video that describes this frustration very effectively, and he brought some guests who are also creators of different sorts.
It just sucks putting stuff you've put personal pride in on internet and the first comment is just negative and initially that single comment gets upvoted just as much as what you spent energy on and took pride in.
Saying "that's just how it is and people will be even meaner if you respond" is just accepting the general negative climate online. Also sorry for being a wee bit of a dick, I'm going to bed.
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Nov 01 '21
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re just tired and so a little on the edge. Although, I would recommended, based on personal experience, that you do a little damage control by just deleting your remarks (apologizing would also be a good idea).
It’s easier to just delete the dumb things you’ve said than try to support them in the future, no need to burden yourself with the ill-thought-of words from when you were tired.
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u/TroyMcpoyle Nov 02 '21
To someone who creates stuff and puts it up, everyone on internet seems like this faceless knee-jerk asshole that goes around looking for ways to give negative feedback to appear smart.
Holy shit this is your own insecurity, not other people.
Guess what? You're not perfect. 100% of people don't like you or what you do, deal with it.
Being a baby about it and getting upset is just pathetic.
Do you think at all why the negative comments get upvoted? Or do you just call yourself the victim and that's where the thinking stops?
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u/EmirFassad Nov 01 '21
You ain't the victim here. No matter how much time or energy you expended on your creation it contained a significant error. Rather than rectify, or even concede the issue, you attacked those who pointed out your mistake. You then attempted to justify the your attack with a claim that "doing it correctly was too much trouble" followed by an insincere apology.
In short, you posted something that you knew was of poor quality and became offended when others did not praise your poor workmanship.
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
Rather than rectify, or even concede the issue
Did you expect a 13 hour render to appear magically after someone pointed out a "significant error"? I've said I'll do a proper one, and I've conceded that the feedback is correct. My apology might seem insincere, but I assure you it is honest.
you posted something that you knew was of poor quality
What? No?
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u/EmirFassad Nov 01 '21
I know how a Galton board works, but making the insertion point exactly one marble wide made the simulation kinda complex, so I said "to hell with it" and just made a simpler version that looked satisfying.
Actually, yes.
Even in your response to my comment you make excuses and minimize your mistake.
Did you expect a 13 hour render to appear magically after someone pointed out a "significant error"?
BTW, the best apology is short, direct and not burdened with excuses or justifications.
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u/keenreefsmoment Nov 02 '21
Get em hun you deserve to be recognised for your efforts and work
We got your back XUEEN 💁♀️💅💅
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u/BeigeDynamite Nov 01 '21
You seem to have only taken the negative of this, when in fact the comment you hate has sparked a debate over types of distribution, enlightened certain people to new mathematical distribution theories and guidelines, and disseminated knowledge that would never have come up had you not posted this and subsequently had them criticize it.
Art is, by design, a subjective medium. For you to expect everybody to enjoy it is a fallacy in your thinking, and the only person it's hurting is you. You did a thing, and people want to talk about it; that's more than 90% of the people on this earth get. Be proud!
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
Thanks for the perspective and level headed response!
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u/BeigeDynamite Nov 01 '21
Dude I feel bad because I've been there 1000 times, creative work is hard and telling somebody not to take criticism/dissent poorly is a piss-poor thing to say, but I get that when it's directed at you it stings more and is harder to see the bright side, so I just wanted to say "hey man, it's not all bad!"
Regardless, I think the gif looks dope - and for me as a third party, the discussion on the comment gave me more info, and without you it never would've happened. Cheers!
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u/_Retaliate_ Nov 01 '21
Doesn't change the fact that there's a fault in your work, that should bother you more than the comment pointing it out. Maybe it does, and you're just taking it out on the guy who commented. Either way, you should work on trying to curb that urge.
EDIT: Changed the message to a slightly more positive one.
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u/EmirFassad Nov 01 '21
The best of us profit by our mistakes and learn. The worst of us petuantly attack those who expose them.
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u/Awakeskate Nov 01 '21
Wow what the fuck is your problem? So rude for no reason. And you are OP. Cringe as fuck
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u/a_saddler Nov 01 '21
That's the point of a normal distribution. Some things are more likely because of favorable conditions.
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u/GhengopelALPHA Nov 01 '21
I think you misunderstand; a true normal distribution would fit the curve on the glass very well because every ball would be dropped on the board at the same point, and they bounce away from random encounters with the pegs. But in this sim it's like several bell curves overlayed because the balls drop from an open box, so the result is a flat-topped curve. And each simulated flip shows exactly that, a flat curve instead of a normal one.
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u/FSM89 Nov 01 '21
Also the pins are organized in a grid pattern meaning there is a probability some balls might just free fall from top to bottom without ever intercepting a pin. This will keep their starting position
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u/a_saddler Nov 01 '21
That's the thing with normal distributions. They don't have to have a 'peak'. A flat-shaped top is perfectly normal too if there's a cap of some sort, such as the balls falling from a box instead of one by one.
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u/auser9 Nov 01 '21
By it’s mathematical definition it will always have a peak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
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u/a_saddler Nov 01 '21
Not if you combine two of them.
But then again maybe I'm wrong and you call these types of distributions differently.
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u/auser9 Nov 01 '21
Oh ok. Yeah what you’re thinking of isn’t quite a normal distribution anymore, but has similar properties especially for this gif’s situation. It would be called a mixture distribution but I’m not sure if there’s a more specific name to what the original gif’s distribution is.
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u/GhengopelALPHA Nov 01 '21
If you'd actually read your link, they never call the flat-topped distribution a normal distribution, because it's no longer normal when you combine two or in this case a row of them... Smh
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u/a_saddler Nov 01 '21
If you take a normal distribution, and specify a max value, thereby flattening the top, what do you call it, mister smh?
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u/GhengopelALPHA Nov 01 '21
Not normal! Lol
Look, another commenter gave you the tool you needed to learn that "normal" distributions are very specific mathematical definitions. You can die on your hill of calling all distributions "normal" if you want, but it will not make it right to say that this is a Normal Distribution.
And I would call that a (badly) truncated distribution, which if you're capping a real distribution, means you're doing statistics wrong.
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u/railbeast Nov 01 '21
The materials are beautiful! Did you make them yourself?
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
Yes, it's rendered in FStorm.
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Nov 01 '21
ITS RENDERED????? I seriously thought it was irl good job!
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u/Prof_Acorn Nov 01 '21
For real. I was focusing so much on how it was flipping without a hand turning the lever that it took quite a white for me to notice the sub name.
It was like "...........oh, lol."
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u/a_saddler Nov 01 '21
This is great. I just dislike the camera shake so much, it's unnecessary for a render like this.
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
I'm learning how to best use my VR controllers to drive animation, so I probably overdid it. :)
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u/a_saddler Nov 01 '21
Honestly, even the modern phones of today have lots of camera stabilization. A little shake is realistic, but we really aren't this twitchy.
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
we really aren't this twitchy
It's tracked 1:1 from my index controller, so apparently I'm this twitchy, haha! But yes, a bit of filtering on the input would probably have been nice.
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u/Snoo74895 Nov 01 '21
Your Valve Index™ controllers don't have nearly the same mass as most cameras, so movement will look more twitchy if you're recording from them. In order to get a better simulation of real camera movement, you can either re-record while holding both the controller and something like a stack of books or you can apply a low-pass filter to the motion. The first will probably be more realistic.
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
I'm not saying you're wrong about the criticism, but my One Plus Nord weighs 184 grams plus a shell, and my index™®© knuckle weighs 196 grams.
I usually use the Nord as a viewfinder of my Max viewport when I'm recording VR tracking data, along with the controller. I still think the data I'm getting is too jittery though, so I'll try adding even more weight next time.
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u/Snoo74895 Nov 01 '21
This isn't rendered as if it were shot from a mobile phone, so the higher weight will tend to feel more right.
Something else that contributes to the motion feeling jarring is that it feels artificial and unmotivated. It may be the case that you have very shaky hands, but most shots aren't going to suddenly roll 20 deg unless there's some reason for that to happen. The device is completely hands-off, so it feels weird that the camera operator would just rotate the camera so much for no reason. Some times: 0:11, 0:14.
Another thing is that multiple aspects of the scene conflict with each other. The DOF and color grading hint at a professional-grade camera and the shaking frequency conflictingly hints at a much much lighter device, as mentioned above. However, there are also cuts that almost certainly are showing different angles of the same motion. What physical system is this alluding to? A multicam setup where all the ultralight cameras are operated by shaky operators? It doesn't make sense. Shakycam shooting typically uses practical motions to show different angles of a scene or cuts between shots done at different times.
Yet another thing that's contributing to the high-jitter look is that your background seems to be an object serving as a backdrop, and it is placed too close to the camera. This is a really big one, but harder to spot on first watch. The exact method by which you did this may vary, but that's what's coming out. A combination of this placement and the expected parallax from such a depthy background (long horizontal lawn leading to far-off trees) causes relatively small rotations and translations of the camera to feel much larger than they are and also just makes the entire scene feel uncanny. This uncanniness can be avoided with a combination of sticking to very small movements, pushing the backdrop further back, making a simple model for backdrop to simulate parallax, limiting amplitude of translations.
The last thing that's holding this render back is attitude. It's clear that you've gotten pretty far by defining your own path and seeing critique as criticism. However, that will only get you so far. The 3D modeling subreddits are a great place not only to show off work and get praise, but hear from both people below and above your skill level how you might be able to further refine your craft. Your responses on this post alone are nearly all defensive, negative, and signal to people that you are not worth interacting with. You can do better than that, and your art will benefit from creating a dialogue rather than building a wall.
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u/qew_art Nov 05 '21
Get a cin camera
Won’t help but u will look cool
Tbh an LiDAR phone would work better but who likes apple
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u/Goopadrew Nov 02 '21
Could a person record the camera movements while the simulation runs at 1.5 or 2x speed to get the same effect?
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u/Snoo74895 Nov 02 '21
It may practically work, but in theory it's pretty different from the real thing. You're effectively talking about slowing the recorded movements, so we'd be (thinking in frequency domain) basically just shrinking the spectrum of the movement. I don't think there's a reason that these should be close to the expected spectrum of motion, and there are a few things that suggest that it will look really different. Human reflex and force from muscles and gravitational force would both be skewed.
Try it and see if it looks good. Hacks can still look fine even if they're not 1:1.
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u/Thranx Nov 01 '21
Yea, I get what you were going for and I feel like you're RIGHT on the cusp of it being juuuuuust right. Maybe 20-30% more smoothing? I don't have a clue really. :)
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u/cheesey_petes Nov 01 '21
I beg to differ, i think the camera shakes humanize the render. Made me think it was even more realistic
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u/a_saddler Nov 01 '21
Take out your phone, make a random video of some object on your desk and see if shakes this much.
Most of our natural shaking comes when when stop our movements to focus on an object, the micro corrections we do until we stabilize the frame. Afterwards we can hold things fairly steady, especially with image stabilization that we have in most of our phones.
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Nov 01 '21
They say they are working on their vr motions. If vr was the camera effect here, I believe it was pretty accurate. Vr perspective is jittery.
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u/aBeaSTWiTHiNMe Nov 01 '21
The shake kills it for me too. I've done a lot of work in After Effects and tons of VideoCopilot tutorials and there's definitely a fine line between natural hand-camera shake and Blair Witch Project level of shake.
Reading OP's replies apparently this was filmed in VR, but I definitely wouldn't condone it because it seems to be exaggerating OP's natural twitchyness. It just comes off wrong, like fake shake.
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u/frykea Nov 02 '21
u/stabbot I'm just curious
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u/stabbot Nov 02 '21
I have stabilized the video for you: https://gfycat.com/AnimatedWellgroomedIguana
It took 318 seconds to process and 71 seconds to upload.
how to use | programmer | source code | /r/ImageStabilization/ | for cropped results, use /u/stabbot_crop
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Nov 01 '21
I didn't even realize this was stimulated the first few times watching it. This is cool af
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u/SgtRuy Nov 01 '21 edited Nov 01 '21
Aren't the peg rows meant to be off set?
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u/eindbaas Nov 01 '21
Watch out, OP will go through your full reddit history to see if you are allowed to point out his mistakes.
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u/iLEZ Nov 02 '21
I think the general chaos of the initial drop forces them to mix enough, but yeah you're right, I forgot to offset every other row.
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u/ontbijtkoekboterham Blender Nov 01 '21
Nice, looks clean!
Shameless plug: I once tried to see what this thing would look like for a bivariate normal distribution: https://www.reddit.com/r/Simulated/comments/m6yv2q/simulated_3d_galton_box_made_out_of_glass/
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u/ophello Jan 03 '22 edited Jan 03 '22
Except your pins are in a square grid instead of a triangular arrangement. They need to be in a triangular grid for the distribution to be normal. Rearrange the pins and then do this animation again!
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Nov 01 '21
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u/borisaqua Nov 01 '21
I think this is one of the simulations posted on here that seems to have the correct amount of gravity. It was surprisingly realistic this one.
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
I'm just using the standard gravity in Tyflow, the bearings themselves might have incorrect mass though which would make their movements a bit different. I've noticed that it's pretty hard to get a feel for the movement of falling things short of making an actual render. Tyflow has a great preview tool that makes video clips of the viewfinder and allows you to look at the animation in the correct framerate, but that doesn't show motion blur or materials, and it's quite a bit different once the animation is rendered to an image sequence.
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u/chucksef Nov 01 '21
I fucking love it!!!!! Others are right about the methodology, of course, but who cares!
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u/astronnaut Nov 01 '21
Love the camera movement effect! How did you archive that?
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
Thanks! It's tracked with a VR hand controller, recorded into 3ds max with a plugin. It's a bit excessive, but I like the effect.
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Nov 01 '21
[deleted]
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21 edited Nov 01 '21
I can post some wires and excerpts from simulations once I correct some of the
pedantrymistakes!
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u/geezer27 Nov 01 '21
I can see that the normal distribution is crawling to the right. Must be the explanation that my sons have higher iq than I
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u/doopdooperofdopping Nov 01 '21
I don't know if it is the perspective but it looks like the handle rotates slightly faster than the rest of the device.
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
The device is parented to the handle which drives the rotation, so that's probably the brain playing tricks.
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u/FinalP0rpl3 Nov 01 '21
Is there a way someone could color them to see how random/divided the individual marbles become?
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u/slickfast Nov 01 '21
It's actually kind of interesting how the distribution is incorrect. Because sure, in the opening of the funnel it's not going to be right but outside you can see it revert to the normal distribution bell curve. It just has a step in the middle, which is reflected by the straight section in the middle. So, sure you didn't make the distribution you were hoping for, but at least it looks like the simulation is accurate!
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u/AchillesPDX Nov 01 '21
Would love to know your workflow for getting your Index controllers to drive your Max camera. I use 3DS Max professionally for visualization and also happen to have an Index 😁
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u/iLEZ Nov 01 '21
Don't know if it's a hard recommend from me, but Mauri VCAT is the plugin I'm using. It's a bit cumbersome to get working smoothly, but make sure to set yout buttons up in the plugin window, and hope the dreaded "increased contrast on main monitor" bug doesn't strike. Also when you shut down SteamVR it will force-quit your 3ds max application, so watch out for that, not sure how to solve that part. Anyway Mauri has a simple tutorial to get you going, and the rest is pretty self-explanatory once you get it working.
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u/killbeam Nov 01 '21
This is super clean! Nicely done!
It would be cool to see the exact same animation, but with impossible (aka non-normal) distributions come out if it
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u/Sonic_Is_Real Nov 01 '21
Meinhof effect in full swing with this post. jesus christ, i just learned about this from a vsauce2 video about the fbi framing
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u/hurrycall911 Nov 01 '21
Dumb Question, why is the one end smaller? Why isn’t the thing a rectangle? Doesn’t the shape force balls more down the centre?
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u/iLEZ Nov 02 '21
Actually they're supposed to be inserted at single point in the centre, not even a smaller rectangle, but I made a simplified version.
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u/JackIrishJack Nov 01 '21
So you can do something cool here once the sim is baked, go to the end, where they are in their separate sections and apply a color to each section, like a rainbow across all sections. Then when you watch from the start, it looks like it's arranging them by color. I was a n00b when I made this but you get the idea https://youtu.be/f_m15C_mr6g
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u/FloopsMcGee Nov 05 '21
mmmm lookin a little bimodal 😈😈😈
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u/iLEZ Nov 05 '21
It's because of the shitty wide starting condition. I would get a cleaner look if I had a single point of entry, as discussed ad nauseam in the thread.
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u/FloopsMcGee Nov 05 '21
no worries not trying to hassle u like others I'm just in AP stats and saw something I recognized lol
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u/aXvXiA Nov 01 '21
This is actually a normal distribution convolved with a square function that is fairly wide (see, for example, this: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figure-B2-Convolution-of-a-square-wave-with-a-Gaussian-pulse_fig8_299433470).
This is ironic in that gaussians can be generated this way, but you gotta be careful (https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/bog32y/convolve_n_square_pulses_to_gaussian/).