- For newtonian particles a "self effect" button in particle extras makes the particles be effected by themselves if a particle effector is defined for this system, currently this is a brute force method so things start getting slow with more than ~100 particles, but this will hopefully change in the future.
- Two new effector types: charge and a Lennard-Jones potential based force (inter-molecular forces for example).
-Charge is similar to spherical field except it changes behavior (attract/repulse) based on the effected particles charge field (negative/positive) like real particles with a charge.
-The Lennard-Jones field is a very short range force with a behavior determined by the sizes of the effector and effected particle. At a distance smaller than the combined sizes the field is very repulsive and after that distance it's attractive. It tries to keep the particles at an equilibrium distance from each other. Particles need to be at a close proximity to each other to be effected by this field at all.
- Particle systems can now have two effector fields (two slots in the fields panel). This allows to create particles which for example have both a charge and a Lennard-Jones potential.
Previous experiment (in 2000) didn't satisfy, it had even some primitive
NLA option in groups... so, cleaned up the old code (removed most) and
integrated it back in a more useful way.
Usage:
- CTRL+G gives menu to add group, add to existing group, or remove from
groups.
- In Object buttons, a new (should become first) Panel was added, showing
not only Object "ID button" and Parent, but also the Groups the Object
Belongs to. These buttons also allow rename, assigning or removing.
- To indicate Objects are grouped, they're drawn in a (not theme yet, so
temporal?) green wire color.
- Use ALT+SHIFT mouse-select to (de)select an entire group
But, the real power of groups is in the following features:
-> Particle Force field and Guide control
In the "Particle Motion" Panel, you can indicate a Group name, this then
limits force fields or guides to members of that Group. (Note that layers
still work on top of that... not sure about that).
-> Light Groups
In the Material "Shaders" Panel, you can indicate a Group name to limit
lighting for the Material to lamps in this group. The Lights in a Group do
need to be 'visible' for the Scene to be rendered (as usual).
-> Group Duplicator
In the Object "Anim" Panel, you can set any Object (use Empty!) to
duplicate an entire Group. It will make copies of all Objects in that Group.
Also works for animated Objects, but it will copy the current positions or
deforms. Control over 'local timing' (so we can do Massive anims!) will be
added later.
(Note; this commit won't render Group duplicators yet, a fix in bf-blender
will enable that, next commit will sync)
-> Library Appending
In the SHIFT-F1 or SHIFT+F4 browsers, you can also find the Groups listed.
By appending or linking the Group itself, and use the Group Duplicator, you
now can animate and position linked Objects. The nice thing is that the
local saved file itself will only store the Group name that was linked, so
on a next file read, the Group Objects will be re-read as stored (changed)
in the Library file.
(Note; current implementation also "gives a base" to linked Group Objects,
to show them as Objects in the current Scene. Need that now for testing
purposes, but probably will be removed later).
-> Outliner
Outliner now shows Groups as optio too, nice to organize your data a bit too!
In General, Groups have a very good potential... for example, it could
become default for MetaBall Objects too (jiri, I can help you later on how
this works). All current 'layer relationships' in Blender should be dropped
in time, I guess...
- bug: posemode, bones were drawing names and axes even when hidden
- bug: using softbody guides actually worked on themselves, causing
an infinite loop
- feature: when a pose/bone is completely locked for transform, a grab
will change into rotate by default.
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/New_Particle_options_a.721.0.html
There's no doubt this patch had a lot of good ideas for features, and I
want to compliment Janne again for getting it all to work even!
A more careful review of the features and code did show however quite some
flaws and bugs... partially because the current particle code was very much
polluted already, but also because of the implementation lacked quality.
However, the patch was too good to reject, so I've fixed and recoded the
parts that needed it most. :)
Here's a list of of most evident changes in the patch;
- Guides support recoded. It was implemented as a true 'force field',
checking all Curve path points for each particle to find the closest. Was
just far too slow, and didn't support looping or bends well.
The new implementation is fast (real time) and treats the paths as actual
trajectory for the particle.
- Guides didn't integrate in the physics/speed system either, was added as
exception. Now it's integrated and can be combined with other velocities
or forces
- Use of Fields was slow code in general, made it use a Cache instead.
- The "even" distribution didn't work for Jittered sample patterns.
- The "even" or "vertexgroup" code in the main loops were badly constructed,
giving too much cpu for a simple task. Instead of going over all faces
many times, it now only does it once.
Same part of the code used a lot of temporal unneeded mallocs.
- Use of DerivedMesh or Mesh was confused, didn't work for Subsurfs in all
cases
- Support for vertex groups was slow, evaluating vertexgroups too often
- When a vertexgroup failed to read, it was wrongly handled (set to zero).
VertexGroup support now is with a name.
- Split up the too huge build_particle() call in some parts (moving new code)
- The "texture re-timing" option failed for moving Objects. The old code used
the convention that particles were added with increasing time steps.
Solved by creating a object Matrix Cache.
Also: the texture coordinates had to be corrected to become "OrCo".
- The "Disp" option only was used to draw less particles. Changed it to
actually calculate fewer particles for 3D viewing, but render all still.
So now it can be used to keep editing realtime.
Removed;
The "speed threshold" and "Tight" features were not copied over. This
resembled too much to feature overkill. Needs re-evaluation.
Also the "Deform" option was not added, I prefer to first check if the
current particle system really works for the Modifier system.
And:
- Added integration for particle force fields in the dependency graph
- Added TAB completion for vertexgroup names!
- Made the 'wait cursor' only appear when particles take more than 0.5 sec
- The particle jitter table order now is randomized too, giving much
nicer emitting of particles in large faces.
- Vortex field didn't correctly use speed/forces, so it didn't work for
collisions.
- Triangle distribution was wrong
- Removed ancient bug that applied in a *very* weird way speed and forces.
(location changes got the half force, speed the full...???)
So much... might have forgotten some notes! :)
- added decimate modifier & removed old decimate interface
(currently lacks warning about destroying data, and there needs
to be a way for modifiers to return errors back to the interface)
- allow applyModifier to return NULL to indicate error
- unfortunately new decimate modifier means it does not know exact
number of faces in mesh (other modifiers may come before) and so
instead interface uses a percentage. if people need exact face
count slider then I will have to think of some hack to fit this
in. note that it does display the output face count so its possible
to tweak the pct to get what you want regardless.
- removed python Wave object
If you are bored now how much easier it is to implement something
like decimate as a modifier. Very few changes to interface, very
few entry points.
- made particle system generation use its own RNG object,
keeps it safe against varying calculation order in the renderer
Still a funny bug where having a material on a particle object
changes the particle locations (in renderer, not in interface...
bizarro)
based on time change. would be nice if dep graph could handle this.
- made dep check if modifiers need update on time change
- fix render crash (access null)
- added new Build Effect modifier type. compared to old one works as
a full member of modifier system, means can apply subsurf, etc on
it, reorder, what have you. and it is all nice and self contained.
- removed old Build effect, old files convert to new style on load
- couldn't help myself, added a randomize feature to build effect
- removed Python BuildEffect support
- changed mesh_modifier, sbObjectStep, object_deform to take vertexCo
argument instead of operating on mesh
- fixed bug where a derived mesh would not be returned in editmode
- removed object_wave, replaced by init_wave_deform and calc_wave_deform
- moved cached DerivedMesh to Object, not Mesh... fixes heisenbugs
with linked objects
SoftBodyDetectCollision() is handeling the case
'user wants to prevent self intersection by declaring SB object a deflection target'
ahh .. yeah .. i can see the bug reports on that
(me shrugs .. never promised that to work)
(which still can't really handle moving targets)
leaving 2 bug fixes
1. multiple objects need a reset on cache variable
2. quads always need to be handled as 2 triangles
(since they don't need to share a plane)
added a collision detecting function in effect.c for SB
( no need to be there, but i did not find a better place )
but should handle 'moving targets' up to 0.2 blender units/frame
well .. important info in this case:
collision
uses 'face normal' to decide if *intrusion* happend
uses 'damping' of collision target to slow down movement
when *intrusion* happend
+some more removing unneeded code in softbody.c
claened up sbObjectStep(...) to follow 'time step rules'
added really care for framerate in scene
renamed arguments in softbody_calc_forces(...); and softbody_apply_forces(...); for better reading
fixed particle integration to be ODE solver compatible
- Added new (Particle) Deflector; type Wind.
Wind gives constant directional force. It is animatable (Ipos) and reacts
to Object scaling. Also uses FallOff. Works for particles and SoftBody
quick movie check; http://www.blender.org/bf/0001_0250.avi
test file is in download.blender.org/demo/test/wind_soft.blend
- Added MaxDist option for forcefields, to control its influence better.
Is drawn as circle in 3d window.
Forcefields are a bit weak still... should react to scaling, or not; in
that case drawing should indicate it (done for spherical field now).
Some implicit cast warnings and more importantly, changed the parameter type to int for functions passing the particles random number seed around. No need to use floats there, it's an int anyway.
Effect.c is now warning free (on MSVC 6.0 at least)
New is that objects can have a force field, and Meshes can even deflect
(collide) particles. This is in a new sub-menu in Object buttons F7
The full instructions where on the web, Leon mailed it me and I will put
it in CMS tomorrow. For those who like to play with it now, here are demo
files:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/
Quite some changes where in the integration though... so previous created
particle deflectors will not work. Changes to mention now are:
- gravity is renamed to 'force field'
- force field and deflector options are in Object now, not in Mesh
- the options also have its own struct, doesnt add to Object by default
- force fields are possible for all object types, but only work on center.
So empty objects are typical for it.
Work to do:
- add draw method in 3d win to denote forcefield objects
- check on the UI (panel with different size?)
- add 'recalc' button in deflector panel
by the seed variable. Requested by S68.
Basically they move slightly when you change the seed. Might be
a good idea to split this up so there are two seed options in a
particle effect, however there are already quite a bit of them so I opted
for this.
Kent
(adding)
#ifdef HAVE_CONFIG_H
#include <config.h>
#endif
also the Makefile.in's were from previous patch adding
the system depend stuff to configure.ac
Kent
--
mein@cs.umn.edu
