I'm generally totally open to particle feature requests or ideas and I've now added a 'smaller things todo' and 'interesting ideas' lists on the side panel for you guys to get a better idea of all particle things I'm thinking about.
I think the best way for me to get your requests is by commenting here on my blog. I can't quarantee any requests will make it on to the todo lists, but I will give serious thought to every request I get. That being said I hope to receive quality requests with a clear explanation of what the wanted feature is, example of possible workflow and some reference links if possible. All "AddFeatureXCauseIt'sReallyCool!!" type requests will unfortunately be totally ignored :).
P.S. To all those of you hungry for info on nodes progress: I've gotten very basic emission working to a simple (non mesh) cube shape, but will halt further development untill I've checked more on how other software (like houdini suggested by genscher) handle things.
That, Miter Jahka, sir, is an image of hope!
ReplyDeleteLike, I hope you get this done really soon!
Holding thumbs for ya!
It's a huge benefit (for coders and users) to have developper's blogs like this one to communicate. Thanks for your work, and I hope you will update your blog regularly.
ReplyDeleteGreat Jahka!
ReplyDeleteI especially like:
Fluid particle physics type
Nodes
Bullet for collisions (really sweet!)
Thanks for keeping us updated!
Good luck.
Jahka, I am a bit proponent of nodes for particle systems.. when the number of options and buttons hits a certain point, it become more efficient and less constrained to break it down into components and let the user define his/her own workflow. As for examples:
ReplyDeleteHoudini: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=14&Itemid=132
Softimage Ice: http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/ice/ (particles at bottom with movie)
Ice Particle Tut: http://vimeo.com/groups/ice/videos/1386316
Thinking Particles:
http://cebas.com/products/feature.php?UD=10-7888-35-788&PID=15&FID=597
(Note that they have a demo version for download for windows)
on the topic of boids, have you seen this page?: http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
Ya know what I would really love to see... Fur/hair interacting with cloth. That is the only situation that I occasionally run into where I have to animate in a software package other than Blender, and having it would be a godsend.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what would be involved in something like that, and I imagine it isn't pretty, but still. As an alternative in the meantime, is there a way right now to rig the hair so it can be keyframed? Anyone have a link to a tutorial or example if that's possible?
nwmatt:
ReplyDeleteOf the three node particle systems you mentioned I think xsi ice is the most straight forward at least for me so I guess that's sort of an initial direction I'll investigate. An yes the craig reynolds' site (red3d.com) is what the old and new boids are mostly based on.
ToastBuster:
Fur/hair interacting with cloth is mostly about getting hair particles to work with cloth dynamics instead of the current softbody dynamics. This is on my todo-list and when I get it working it should only be a matter of doing cloth-cloth collisions which I assume the cloth sim allready is capable of. I don't think there's currently a way to keyframe hair animation, but that's an interesting idea and shouldn't be impossible.
Hey man, thanks for the hard work!
ReplyDeleteand one thing that would be nice is something like an "extrude mesh" in the explode modifier,so the exploded pieces dont look like thin edge of the base mesh, and more like a big chunk of the exploded object.
Henrique:
ReplyDeleteI've had a long standing request of somebody writing a separate extrude modifier which would solve this problem straight away and have other uses too, but noone has yet done the job :)
oh... thats sad =(
ReplyDeletetry using the cracker script by vilda. You can crack up a mesh in 3d join them and then use the particles to explode the object
ReplyDeletehi, just a thought.
ReplyDeleteNodes are extremly powerfull, and thus might it not be usfull to alwo the modifyer stak to be replaced by a node tree. Alowing for more compex combinations of modifyers.
awesome! this is so encouraging for bigger VFX pipelines!
ReplyDeleteplease do take a serious look at houdini, it's amazing.
and another thing,
ReplyDeletealthough some people are afraid of nodal systems, it actually makes things like particles much simpler and logical to work through.
look at the particle buttons in blender currently... it's daunting.. a million options!
nodes are simple. add particles, do this to them, do that to them etc... you don't have to be presented with every available option at once :)
my 2 cents.
keep up the good work!!!
hey, here´s another idea!
ReplyDeletea particle animation activated by an certain event, like an bird flying in the sky that gets shoot and falls in too the floor.
If you can make this as Intuitive and easy as Max's Particle flow then your on to a winner.
ReplyDeleteMy main asks would be
Particle Caching
Multithreading
Rigidbody mesh Particles
Partical Glueing and breaking (force based)
If you want inspiration take a look at the
Pflow Box 1,2, and 3 from Orbaz They have some amazing features which unify cloth and rigid body sims into an event based particle system
Here is a link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.orbaz.com/products/particleflow/
Robert_F: All the things you suggested are hopefully in the future of Blender particles. I'm currently working on caching, and multithreading is also quite high priority. Rigid body would be great but is not an easy task. And I definately aggree "glue" physics could make some very nice things possible.
ReplyDeleteWonderful, I hadn't seen this before!
ReplyDeleteHoudini has a free demo available, perhaps you could download and try, Jahka?
Cheers!
You the man Jahka!
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered why particles can't have a random texture coordinate assigned to each particle. For example, when using the halo material with a texture, all the particles use the same texture coordinate, so each instance has the exact same texture as the others. If you could randomize or jitter the particles textures tex coordinate, then each particle's tecture would look slightly different. This would work especially nice when using the cloud type textures. Each particle would have a random offset in the texture coordinate giving each particle a different 'look'.
ReplyDeleteMS:
ReplyDeleteThat is actually a very nice idea! I've actually been thinkin about ways to make nicer textures for halo & billboard particles and this would certainly be a good option, thank you for the idea!
These would be highly useful in visual effects. Now we're nearing the power of Houdini. PLEASE pursue this!
ReplyDelete