MiikaHweb Blog -> Development (Page 3)

Recently I have been working to improve Dynamic Paint functionality and allow painless Ptex (Per-Face Texture Mapping) integration in the future.

This next step is _vertex painting_. Basically you'll be able to select canvas output type. Available options will be vertex, Ptex and image output (current dp). Vertex output allows you to paint vertex colors, vertex groups and displaces.

Operating on vertex level makes things easier in many ways. First of all you don't have to unwrap any UV data or load image sequence textures to make it work. It's just clicking bake and seeing the results. Even displace will happen directly by the Dynamic Paint modifier.

Negative things compared to image textures are limited resolution and rendering options. That's why vertex stuff isn't going to replace current Dynamic Paint but to be an alternative way. Hopefully Ptex will be the ultimate Dynamic Paint solution. :)


I made a small demo of vertex group/weight painting. A grass worm.

In that video grass particle length is defined by a Dynamic Paint generated vertex group.


Please note that this is still in very early stage of development. You shouldn't expect any kind of test versions for several weeks.

I figured I'd post some cool Dynamic Paint videos I've seen on YouTube/Vimeo. :)


Tyre burnout skid marks by blazraidr:



Fire burning away skin, also by blazraidr:



Cool fluid drip effect (Dynamic Paint texturing guided by fluid particles) by edi:



Dripping paint on a simulated cloth, by TheBlendervideos:





In case someone had trouble compiling Dynamic Paint, I recently uploaded v1.18 that mainly fixes compile errors on latest SVN revisions (no new functionality).
I also posted the patch to Blender tracker. Hopefully someone is able to review it before they start accepting new features. :x

Yesterday I found an easy way to report Dynamic Paint status without console. Just show the result within the ui - like many other Blender parts have done for a while. Yet, I never figured it's possible to do that. :x

Now, when baking is done you get a new text field below the bake button that tells you what happened. On a successful bake it just reports "Bake complete! (Time: -)". In case of an error, like missing UV data or no paint objects in scene, you'll get an error message that tells you what's wrong.

Of course all this info has always been visible at console, but now it's easily visible within the ui! Still can't believe I didn't figure this out earlier. x_X

EDIT: I also added Blender 2.5x style error and warning messages in case of a non-successful bake.

I was testing how Blender 2.5x indirect lightning system works with textured emitters. At first it seemed like it doesn't work at all, especially with images, but apparently you just have to subdivide the mesh enough times to cover those emissive pixels.

So yeah, of course I ended up making a new test/demo of Dynamic Paint. In this one I used two high resolution canvases to cover all the geometry. For rendering I had to subdivide them to total ~1 million vertices to emit light properly.

I think the result is quite cool:

I just released a new version of Dynamic Paint.

Changes in Dynamic Paint v.1.15:
- You can now select which material to use when "Use Material" is enabled. Now the color selection box changes to a material selector. If no material is selected, it behaves just like before.
- Removed some useless ui elements like display/render settings and buttons from modifier panel.
- Some minor tweaking.

Since Dynamic Paint seems to be stable and I don't have anything critical on my todo list, I think it's time to roll Dynamic Paint out of beta. :) I'll keep updating if something comes to mind, and of course I'll keep this compatible with SVN. Now it's just waiting for Blender to start accepting new features and then see if DP can become officially part of Blender.


Of course there are some things to add or change later, that aren't currently possible to do:
- Non-ui-freezing bake system. I'll implement this as soon as it's possible without random crashes.
- PTex support. To do as soon as Blender itself gets PTex support.


Thanks everyone for your support, feedback, donations and for testing Dynamic Paint!


EDIT:
I just found out that mouse cursor progress bar works again in latest SVN revisions. Re-enabled now in v.1.15b.

It's been more than a month since I released the first part of my Dynamic Paint guide. Now the second part is finally here.

It took way too long and I'm still not quite happy with some parts of it. But I have been completely missing my motivation to touch it. This guide has been like 90% done for up to two weeks. x_X

This second and final part of the guide explains all paint object related settings and also includes some downloadable .blend files.

Here is a render from one of the samples: Wetmap textures for fluid simulations.

I just updated my builds and the patch to version 1.13.

This new version fixes compatibility with recent SVN revisions (build errors and/or crashing) and fixes a crash when duplicating a "paint" object. I also did some code tweaking and added error messages if running out of memory. (Quite unlikely since dp barely requires memory but still... :p)

For download links check my Blender Builds page.

I know it was just yesterday when I released Dynamic Paint v1.10. However, yesterday Thomas Dinges (the Blender 2.5 UI coder) did some cleanup on Dynamic Paint user interface, so I decided to release it right away.


Changes in v1.12:
- UI cleanup by Thomas Dinges (DingTo).
- Fixes a bug with paint colors.
- Some code cleaning and tweaking.


You can download Windows builds or a code patch from my Blender Builds page.

I just uploaded Dynamic Paint v1.10 patch and builds. It fixes some bugs and improves some parts I found incomplete while writing the guide.

Changes after v.1.08:
- Textured painting is now anti-aliased, if AA is enabled.
- Fixes output issues that occured if canvas had more than 32.767 vertices.
- Fixes textured painting with smoke. Apparently it hasn't worked for months.
- Some minor tweaking.

You can download Windows builds or a patch from my Blender Builds page.

I also made a small patch for smoke simulator. It fixes viewing start and end of cached smoke when frame is outside the cache range. Basically this simplifies Dynamic Paint baking and smoke rendering if smoke simulation starts after frame 1. It was commited in SVN rev 33016.


Here's a simple scene testing all kinds of textured painting: (I made this for the DP guide.)

First part of my Dynamic Paint guide is now out. It covers all Dynamic Paint Canvas settings. Rest of the guide (Paint settings) will be released within a week. I'll also make improvements to the existing parts and add some downloadable .blend file samples later.

Check it out here : Blender: Dynamic Paint Guide.

And feel free to inform me if you find some parts confusing or need more info. Otherwise I might not be able to improve the guide. :)


I also posted yet another Dynamic Paint update: v.1.05 fixes some issues with displacement maps and slightly improves effects system.



EDIT 2010-10-18: I've been busy with other things lately and can't focus on writing the second part of this guide. It will be delayed for a week or so. :p

Dynamic Paint patch is now updated to version v1.06. It fixes compatibility with recent SVN version plus some Mac OSX related issues, thanks Jens Verwiebe for reporting those!

EDIT 2010-10-22: Dynamic Paint v1.07 released. It restores compatibility with latest SVN and fixes some issues with textured and face-aligned proximity painting.