Today I created a new tool to scatter objects in your Maya scene using Python. The tool would take input of objects that the user wants to scatter and surface on which the user wants to scatter it and lastly, an optional bounding volume in which the object can be scattered. The tool can create objects in varying scales and rotations and for debugging purposes and ease of use, it will assign a custom transparent material on the bounding box. The user can also define the density of the scattering objects to get more control over them the scatter. The tool is ideal for the environment artists to scatter foliage and other props in the scene.
As you can see the scene only consists of basic poly meshes from maya. Here we are using plane as surface to scatter on. And cubes as bounding boxes.
Here we input the data inside the tool.
Here we adjust more parameter and initiate the scatter, and as you can see the scattered objects get automatically grouped.
Now as you can see if we remove the bounding box the objects get scattered throughout the surface.