MiikaHweb Blog (Page 3)

Vertex group painting that I was experimenting with in January, is now finally available for download. I committed it to soc-2011-carrot branch earlier today, so just get a Carrot branch build at revision 37622 or later. You can get Windows builds from MiikaHweb Blender Builds section.


I also uploaded two example .blend files you can use to try out Dynamic Paint's new realtime vertex painting functionality.

This demo shows how to use Dynamic Paint's vertex level color and displace:

Download .blend

This demo shows how to use vertex weight groups to control particle hair length. This one is very similar to the "Grass Worm" video I posted earlier.

Download .blend


One critical component is still missing though. Currently there is really no proper way to render vertex colors in Blender. It's only possible to render one layer at time and only use it as diffuse color. :(
That's something I'm planning to improve later this summer.

I just found out about this great Dynamic Paint test by CristobalAtria. It shows very clearly how and why to use wetmaps together with fluid simulations to achieve realistic renders. So if you have been wondering what wetmaps are good for, check this out:

As most of you know, I was accepted to work on improving Dynamic Paint this summer as a Google Summer of Code student. The coding period began two weeks ago and now I finally have something to demo.

The biggest goal of my GSoC project is allowing vertex and Ptex level painting. Those formats will use Blender's point cache as storage thus allowing such cool things like real-time viewport preview of canvas and no need for UV mapping or to actually care for file locations etc.

Here is a screencap demoing vertex level displacement painting + real-time viewport preview:


It's still heavily work in progress so it will take at least a week before I'll commit these changes to my GSoC branch (soc-2011-carrot). Also, the final Ptex support is pending until Nicholas Bishop (or someone else) finishes the basic Ptex implementation for Blender. :s

MiikaHweb Blender Builds system is now updated.

I wrote some scripts that take care of compiling and uploading new builds so maintaining them is now just matter of few clicks. This means more often updated builds.

I'm now building branches too. So far only BMesh and "paged-particles". But I'm going to add more when new somewhat regularly updated ones emerge.

This also means I'm going to do regular Windows builds for GSoC 2011 branches too, when they are available.

The third "Humble Bundle" was launched just a few hours ago. This time it features three well-known games by Finnish Frozenbyte Inc.: Trine, Shadowgrounds, and Shadowgrounds: Survivor. Games are available for Windows, Linux and Mac so operating system isn't going to be a problem. Also as a bonus you get two Windows only games: Splot and Jack Claw.

And what is so special about these Humble Bundles? You can set the price yourself! You can also donate part of the money for charity.

I just updated the site layout.

This new layout mainly introduces better navigation and improves overall look. It uses new CSS3 styles, so some older browsers may not display everything properly.

Please inform me if you experience any problems with this.

Lately I have been tweaking and testing iWave simulator to achieve more realistic results. Sadly it seems like the more tests I do, more strange behavior I encounter. :)

But realistic or not. Results are at least very interesting, allowing yet another new way for Blender objects to interact. So of course I will finish this project and improve it as much as possible. One new thing is foam generation. When enabled, it automatically generates foam on wave highpoints and is very good for boat wake/trail foam.


Notice a "bug" how those small waves are moving in the wrong direction in the beginning. Let's consider it as engine turbulence. ;)

Basic water movement (ambient waves) are generated using Blender's new Ocean Simulator modifier, boat wakes using iWave.


Because adding new 2D-simulators to Dynamic Paint is quite easy it's likely that I will implement an alternative more accurate wave simulator sometime in the future.

Edit: An alternative wave algorithm (not iwave :x) has been added to Dynamic Paint instead.

A couple of days ago I was playing with Blender ocean simulator modifier. While it's able to generate realistic wave motion, it's not able to interact with other objects.

Then I got an idea: what if I integrated a simple wave simulator with Dynamic paint!

So I ran across iWave algorithm by Jerry Tessendorf. I also discussed this with ZanQdo (Daniel Salazar) who was already implementing iWave for Blender through Python. We agreed that Dynamic Paint could be the best way to go, because it allows easy object interaction and is able to output textures as well as displacement.

iWave is a simple algorithm for simulating 2D water surface ripples/waves and their interaction with obstacles.


Now after a few days I already have a very basic iWave integration:

What you see here is an iWave surface interacting with Blender objects via Dynamic Paint. You should also note that it's just a normal mapped plane, so it's very fast to render!


Unfortunately, there is still lots of work to do before I can release a public test version... :s

Edit: An alternative wave algorithm, has been added to Dynamic Paint instead.

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