Drop to ground ?

Hi Blenderartists :slight_smile:

Does Blender have a “drop to ground” or “collision detection” function to make placing objects on a terrain simpler?

I did find this addon http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Object/Drop_to_ground but when I try to enable it, I get a callback error - see attached.

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Some ideas:

If it’s only a few objects to place, move them where needed in top view, enable snapping on faces, then z-translate the objects till they stick to the surface.

If you want to place many objects or a group of objects on a surface, you could do this via particles:
Create a particle system on your surface, set it to hair, then under the Render tab switch to ‘Object’ and add the object (or Group).
If you don’t want them tilted in all directions on the uneven surface, activate the Rotation tab and select Global Z.
Or you might want to comb the ‘Hair’ to control randomness…
To define the area where the particles are supposed to be, create a Vertex Group and assign the vertex selection of that area.

When finished editing, convert them into mesh, wich turns them into Dupli Objects (or what’s the correct name?) (Modifier tab). In order to edit the objects individually, make Single User (U).

That’s weird, here addon works fine on v2.75.
Could you post lines concerning blender version and your OS from system-info.txt file you get when you choose menu Help - System info?
http://www.pasteall.org/pic/92400

Thanks for the reply, motimo :slight_smile:

I have tried using snapping - it’s OK for simple objects, but trying to get a human form to snap to a rock is pretty weird - dives onto her back!

I do use particles for mass replications, though.

eppo - here is a screencap - seems we are using different versions of Blender 2.75?

Edit: OK, I found out how to use PasteAll - this should be clearer :slight_smile:http://www.pasteall.org/pic/92401

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I have blender downloaded from blender.builder.org/download page.
There’s always something going on concerning some errors being cleared (and some introduced ;)) - http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-extensions-cvs/

Could be that another blender build might have this error you encounter cleared - try downloading new build, unzip in some folder and run.

To not to mess up your installed Blender settings it is important before you run downloaded blender to create folder “config” under one called “2.75”. Folders then would look like …/Downloads/MyBlenders/blender-2.75-c749fe4-win64/2.75/config if you had used today’s build.
First thing to do after you run blender is to go UserPreferences and set File->Scripts path to point to the Scripts folder for this download: …/blender-2.75-c749fe4-win64/2.75/scripts.

This ensures you could run any downloaded Blender’s version independently and each would have it’s own set of scripts (and User Preference settings).

Bugs and installations aside, you could use Scene Physics and drop some Active Plane to the Passive ground (or rocks). Make Plane to Duplicate from Faces on Object tab; parent your humanoid to the Plane.

Edit: Drop to ground has undergone a lot of changes. One which is included in Blender downloads from blender.builder.org (‘official’ might not have all addons) has a version which is quite different and does not even have such code line shown in your screenshot.
At any moment you can download newest version of some addon from here:
https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/ Blender Addons or Blender Addons Contrib

drop to ground - https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BAC/browse/master/object_drop_to_ground.py

Thanks, eppo - that gives me some alternatives to try out. I’ll try each, see which work best for me :slight_smile:

Edit: Just to confirm that the version of the addon you linked to works perfectly - thanks again :slight_smile: