Emit random objects inside array-ed object

Question

I have this collections of shape that i want to array and emit

I want all the objects to appear randomly inside this box, this box is just s box that I used array modifier so all is identical

I want to put one random shapes on the holes of the boxes, randomly. here is what i meant by that, and what i want to achieve

VISUALIZATION

What i have tried:

1. I put small plane in the middle of the box and set that plane as a vertex group, so i have some surface to emit to.
2. I use emitter particle system and emit exactly the amount of boxes i have (which is 9), and selecting the shapes collections

It didnt go as planned

any solution would be amazing, because i have a ton of holes i need to fill

Answer 1

it is a pretty basic setup, i just show a basic solution - it is not modeled with a shelf, i just took a grid because you didn't provide your blend file and I don't want to waste time.

So here we go:

1. add a grid

2. add a torus, a sphere and a cylinder (or whatever objects you wanna have)

3. add a collection and move all objects from 2) in it

4. add a particle system to your grid

5. set these settings to your particle system:

and you will get:

if you need detailed explanation, let me know, then i will improve the answer.

blend file:

Answer 2

Its a success guys, I'll share the result here

I put a small plane in the middle of the box as an emitter like this

Here's the settings I used, its kinda similar to Chris' settings

since I'm gonna move the "wall" and animate it, the bottles/particles will be left behind. So the trick to make it still follow the emitter is by turning off the physics on the particle settings.

Answer 3

Okay, here is another solution using Geometry Nodes. You can always adjust the number of columns and rows and distances between the objects and of course add and delete objects from the instancing group:

1. I have a shelf with, let's say 4 columns by 6 rows. I know from how I created it (or maybe because I'm recreating some real-world example) that the center of each single field is 0.4 m horizontally and vertically apart from the next.

2. I have a bunch of objects I want to place in the shelf randomly in a collection called "objects".

3. I place a new object with a single vertex at the center of the first shelf field. Then I use two Array modifiers, one to duplicate the vertex 4 times horizontally with a constant offset of 0.4 m, the other for 10 duplicates with a vertical constant offset of 0.4 m.

4. Now I add Geometry Nodes. I use a Point Instance node set to Collection, disable Whole Collection and choose the collection "objects".

5. My objects are much too large for the shelf of course, so I plug a Point Scale inbetween. You could leave the Type at Vector, but I use Float since I scale the objects evenly on all axes. If you don't like the distribution, you can change the Seed value in the Point Instance node to change it.