Patch Available for Particle Hair Styling Features

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thumb.jpgJust imagine what that will mean for your characters, and more…the ability to easily shape and design not only hair but, anything created using particles!

Well, previously, we could only drool over a demo video…now, we can get hands-on experience with these experimental features!

Jahka (the developer) has been kind enough to make a patch available to us. He’s looking for testers and ideas to improve the implementation.

So, let’s give him what he wants!

You can contact him at:
jhkarh at utu dot fi

Thanks Jahka!
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    • grafixsuz

      Thanks Jahka, Downloading!

    • http://nicebut.. marco

      i think particle system is going to be so much difficult to learn… i just managed to use simple particle systems in 242a… i’ll try to follow the tuts, anyway GREAT WORK DUDE!

    • marco

      nice but.. i think particle system is going to be so much difficult to learn… i just managed to use simple particle systems in 242a… i’ll try to follow the tuts, anyway GREAT WORK DUDE!

    • Jobu

      Is this the same as the “boid-patch” from Jahka that was prevoisly available? I believe that had similar looking particle tools in it.

    • http://www.cginsomniac.com Brian

      Kernon,

      Where can we give feedback? I don’t see a link in the post.

    • http://www.sf-galere.net Kram1032

      Wooooh!

    • FreakyDude

      how do u use it? I can’t find the options that are in the current system, like static or vect, I can switch to particle mode, which I assume is where you comb the hair and stuff, but it switches back to object mode instanly.

    • http://www.ultimate-eaw.com/ Galileus

      Marco – you are wrong. I was giving new particles system a good times just for fun, and I was making a lot of tests and experiments with old system – just to find something good enough to make a Deflection and Forces tutorial. And I must say, that new system is maybe a little more complicated itself BUT it is also much more intuitive. You don’t need to make forces of forces of forces of… to make simple air deflector anymore, and if you know what you want to do – you just do it. In old system, it often was terrible to make effect you really want to get. It always was something wrong, and you don’t have really much to say, no control at all, so you was forced to make so funky forces and deflectors, and it is also horror for your PC. Now, when you have greater control, it is just about learn what thing do what. That is a matter of testing it and just enjoying your new toy. Using it is much easier – I said it once, I’ll say again – you have greater control.

    • Garrick

      You are a software God!

      I am new to Blender, and am looking to render my hair as a image in order to comp it with another image from Modo.

      Where do I give feedback?

      Thank you,

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      Feedback can be emailed to Jahka at:

      jhkarh at utu.fi

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      I thought that it might be a good idea if people gave feedback here. That way, Jahka wouldn’t receive 100 emails recommending the same thing or reporting the same bug. Also, it could be more like a brainstorming session where people could get ideas from all of the other ideas posted. With the emailing, no one knows what the others are suggesting.

      Either way is fine.

    • Renato Perini

      How can I download Blender CVS dated 05/02/07? Thank you.

    • Renato Perini

      Sorry for double posting, I want to ask a thing. Is this stuff enabled by default, once the patch has been applied or should I define something? I use Scons to build Blender on a Linux machine.

      Thank you.

    • http://www.sf-galere.net Kram1032

      2.43 doesn’t get any new features anymore…
      Does this mean, the new particles will be included in 2.44?

    • Renato Perini

      @Kram1032
      2.44 or later. I don’t know if this stuff has been discussed for inclusion already.

      @all
      Please tell me how to download CVS sources dated 05/02/07 :P

    • panzi

      Nice, but the particles UI is so different, that I have no idea how to make anything. How do I make strands/hairs?

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      @Renato:
      go to graphicall.org and locate the desired patch file for your OS.

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      @Renato:
      If you mean the .patch files, they can be found via the “developer patch” link.

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      The new features are documented on Jahka’s wiki page. The link is in the previous article on this subject:

      http://www.blendernation.com/2007/01/22/combing-brushing-and-cutting-hair-is-in-blenders-future/

      Here is a direct link to the wiki page:
      http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewrite

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon
    • http://www.awproductionsonline.net Alex

      I’m having the same troubles as “Freaky Dude”. What are we missing? I can’t seem to switch to the particle mode, or produce static particles. The rest looks awesome though. Also, how do you set the particles to render? they don’t seem to show up for me.

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      You have to have particles setup before the Particle Mode is available on the menu.
      - Add New particles
      - On the first tab, Click Baking and AUTO
      - On the second tab, Set an Initial Velocity for the Normal field
      - On the third tab, set Visualization to Path

      Also, please read the wiki page.

    • http://www.osysi.net Bmud

      I’m still disappointed that I cant scrub the particle motion in reverse time (like with the left direction key). It always has to start over unless it’s been baked. I guess that’s a feature — not a bug. For speed I take it? Well it’s frustrating if I’m controlling say.. 20 particles for a life of 20000, they emitted on frame 0, and I’m sitting on frame 19999 and I need to go back just one frame. oops. Go back to the beginning and hold UP for 80 seconds until I get back up there. Yeah. Work on the backwards thing. If I want my particles to speed up, that’s what the display percentage is for.

    • http://www.osysi.net Bmud

      I am in love with the new deflectors. harmonic motion is exactly what I needed last week. :D Using the rotator at 0 force is also kind of fun/interesting. They just sort of lose all their steam and float in mid air.

      Bugs I found:
      1. Using a lamp as a force, uses the emitter as the force source instead.
      2. I was able to comb hair right off the emitter. (very unlike the demonstration video)
      3. If there are fewer faces than there are desired particles, they don’t distribute but in a patch on the surface.
      4. The paths of particles emitting from a cube bend (I guess because of normals near the edges) but then straighten out again.
      5. Cutting hair messes with the emission points, and curvature of strands. This isn’t really a big deal IMO. It also seems that the resolution of hair strands you attempted to keep in tact after a cut, but I don’t know that it actually is.
      6. They don’t seem to render.

      Features not yet found:
      1. I’m sure ‘airbrush’ would be useful for most of the brushes instead of having to wave the disc around to keep strands activated while growing or shrinking.

      This is a huge undertaking. Having any kind of preview of these features is a real treat. Thanks for all the hard work. :D

    • http://cs.unm.edu/~sketch sketchy

      @Bmud- turn on auto baking and then you can scrub in reverse.

    • ccherrett

      let the tutorials begin :)

    • http://twoknowone.blogspot.com/ fromthedark

      Again this may not be the place to say this but… patch for me always tells me “something that is missing that shouldn’t have been…maybe” or ” as we did this it came to us that this was should not have been found missing”, am I wrong feeling this way? Then on top of that, what the heck is someone to do with this thing called a “patch” anyway? Maybe a good tutorial should be added or at least somewhere to learn how to apply this thing called a patch. Many who come here may feel this seems simple but for the many new ones enticed with this thing called Blender may feel very lost very fast not knowing what to do with this thing called a ‘patch’. Or should we feel that if one hasn’t a clue they shouldn’t be here with us? I for one hope not. Help?!

    • http://homepage.mac.com/psyborgue/ Michael Crawford

      @Renato: RE: Please tell me how to download CVS sources dated 05/02/07 :P

      I was lucky. I bookmarked Jahka’s wiki and checked it every day. When he released the patch on the fifth. Bam. I had it. It still compiles with Feb 7th cvs (patch applies with a few line offsets)… but it works fine otherwise. There haven’t been that many changes since then. Try and apply the patch and see what happens.

      @Bmud

      RE: 2. I was able to comb hair right off the emitter. (very unlike the demonstration video)

      I had this problem too. Apparantly you have to set the bake space to “geometry” for it to stick to the mesh (makes sense)

      RE: 3. If there are fewer faces than there are desired particles, they don’t distribute but in a patch on the surface.

      I had this issue as well but it’s easily resolved
      Particle system tab > Emit from > Faces
      Set Even to On and the distrobution to random.

      RE: 4. The paths of particles emitting from a cube bend (I guess because of normals near the edges) but then straighten out again.

      I have this problem as well. It’s not just cubes. It’s all kinds of shapes and the direction seems to be pretty random.

      RE, 5,6 Cutting and rendering work fine here.

      RE: airbrush.. god no. i like it the way it is.

      I’m using Jahka’s Feb 5th patch (home compile)

      Mac OSX Tiger
      PPC (Dual G5)
      Nvidia 6800 UltraDDL

    • http://homepage.mac.com/psyborgue/ Michael Crawford

      re: fromthedark

      A patch is a modification to the official CVS. Most work starts out as patches (sculpt-mode for example was a patch). A patch is simply a method of applying a change. “patch” doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in the “windows world”. It is not a “fix”, it’s an “optional add-on that has not been approved yet”.

    • http://homepage.mac.com/psyborgue/ Michael Crawford

      @fromthedark. I misread your post. ignore the above

    • bludragon

      In the (linux) world, at least for the linux kernel, there are literally 50 new patches every day. Occasionally they are bug fixes, many are code re-writes, and more are new features for things that didn’t come before. I’m not kidding about the 50 part. As stated previously, these patches are pieces of source code that allow the program to do something differently. Usually in the windows world, you get a binary patch –something thats been compiled that replaces some other binary part (you can think of it as cutting a piece out of a baked cake and replacing it with another slice of baked cake). With these uncompiled source code patches, you are changing the source code and then compiling (changing the ingredients of the cake before you bake it). In my analogy, ‘compiling’ the program is like baking the cake. Compiling the program means taking the instructions from the high level programming language (here the language is called C++), and the compiler turns it into assembly language (a set of mnemonic commands for a specific microprocessor but is still readable by people). Then another program called a linker turns the assembly code into machine code (1′s and 0′s that the microprocessor understands). This last step is the normal binary ‘program’ that you see running. There is no difference in these steps between the Linux world and the windows world (or the Mac world, or the Sun world or the IBM world or any other computer type world including cell phones and mainframes). The steps are all the same, but the programs are different because of support libraries, microprocessors, etc. being all different. Hope this adds more clarity than confusion.
      -bd

    • jahka

      Hello,

      first of all thank you all for testing!

      About the bugs/features you’ve found:
      -Particles are reset in reverse time.
      This comes from the fact that by default my particles are dynamically calculated and there’s no way to know how make a reliable step backwards (same as softbody!). This is exactly what the auto baking is for. For now due to limitations in the blender baking system (actually there even isn’t one yet :) changes outside the particle object don’t initialize the autobake but you have to change some parameted of the particles for the changes to be considered.

      For particle edit mode you should disable auto baking and bake the particles normally, since otherwise the autobaking will rebake and lose your editing once you exit particle mode. In my next patch I have made it so that autobake gets disabled automatically once you enter particle mode to resolve this issue.

      -Hair get’s combed right off the emitter:
      For this you have to select “Keep roots” from the particle mode n-key panel. The option is available when particles have been baked into object or geometry space. In my next patch this option will be on by default.

      -Paths of particles emitting from a cube bend:
      Sounds very strange or then I just don’t get what you guys mean. I’d love to see an example pic showing this behaviour and the particle settings used.

      -Airbrush:
      This is a nice idea and I’ll put it on my todo list to add it as an option.

      -How to use the patch etc:
      Like Michael Crawford and bludragon have explained the actual patch is a modification to the source code of blender. If you’ve never compiled blender straight from the source not even mentioning applying a patch to the source then you will have a much better time using a prebuilt binary for your platform (the links at this article for Win, Mac & Ubuntu)

      -As a note:
      There is a bug in the edit mode that leaves particles baked in object or geometry space into world space after editing so they get saved in the wrong space. After the file is loaded the strands may be all over the place without a way to fix them without a full rebake. This is allready fixed and will not be an issue anymore when I make a new patch.

    • http://i-phone.glogster.com/ Andrew

      Thanks for the info its good.

    • Kai

      Umm, I’m on a PPC mac, you wouldn’t happen to have a build for that, would you? XD

    • Renato Perini

      @jahka
      How to use the patch etc:
      Like Michael Crawford and bludragon have explained the actual patch is a modification to the source code of blender. If you’ve never compiled blender straight from the source not even mentioning applying a patch to the source then you will have a much better time using a prebuilt binary for your platform (the links at this article for Win, Mac & Ubuntu)
      ————————

      Ok, but for those who are able to apply a patch and compile a whole program, how can I download Feb 5th CVS sources from the CVS server? I tried to apply the patch in the current CVS sources and it fails definitely.
      I don’t want to download a binary version but I want to compile it myself. Sorry if I’m pedantic, but I can’t wait trying this stuff.

      Thank you.
      Renato.

    • Kent Mein

      Do a normal cvs checkout and then do this in the root dir:
      cvs update -D “2007-02-05″

      Your other option is to just look at the patch and try to apply it to current cvs by hand.

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      Or, if you can’t wait, you could have downloaded a binary…yesterday. ;P

    • Renato Perini

      @Kent
      Thank you very much ;)

      Kernon
      It’s not the same ;)

    • Michael

      I know this sounds retarded but i got the particle “hairs” how do i comb, cut and do the other things in the video??

    • http://blendernewbies.com Kernon

      @Michael
      Switch to the Particles Mode using the same dropdown listbox that lists the Object, Edit, etc. modes. After switching to Particles mode, press the N-key to bring up the Properties floating panel.

    • micah

      not everyone has intel!!!

    • Zacariem

      How do you install the download?????

    • Zacariem

      Oh btw how do you install it on a MacBook?

    • http://www.razzor.dk Rasmus Andersen

      Hey,

      Is there any build of this patch for PPC mac? Please i really wanna test it :D

    • Garrick

      Any new builds or patches for?

      Thanks,

    • Garrick

      Sorry, for windows.

    • tom

      woot, love the particle baking feature very nice job Jahka

    • tom

      are thrre any tuts avaiabl outliuning all the new gret features?

    • matangdilis

      Awesome hair. I managed to render and animate it in a few minutes.
      I could never master the curve guides approach, this plug-in is intuitive.

      The windows build in the link in this page is a bit old. The edit bug mentioned by Jahka still exist in it, so after styling and saving, when I open the file, the hair is scatterred all over the place. Anyone kind enough to provide a new compile with the new patch?

      Oh, when I imported makehuman obj, and tried to put hair on them, when I enter particle mode, the hair shows up with pink points at their ends. I cannot comb it, but can only move the points. They act like vertices, and can be selected and stuff, but they form straight lines and don’t curve unlike when I make hair from primitives created in the build.

      Lastly, how do you make braids and ponytails with this plug-in?