Cake Particles (Bake your Particles as KeyFramed Objects)

Andrea_Cicero · May 5, 2022, 1:41pm

-Cake Particles is an Addon for Blender that lets you Bake your Particles Simulations into Keyframed Objects.

VER 2.0 supports Bake Step, baking Grease Pencil animated Objects and Metaballs!
(now you can decide how frequently you want to keyframe your simulation!)
Video Update 2.0

VER 1.1.0++ Support Collections of Objects (just keep them all selected and hit bake)

The Goal is to Simplify some Routines to let People create even more Complex .fbx files with just a few Clicks.

It can also be useful to Incentivate the Built-in Quick Effects and Alembic workflows in Blender.

The Addon is located into the Object Properties for all those People like me that can’t read ~~shit~~ when Pressing N.

Get it for Free on Gumroad https://scaryplasmon.gumroad.com/l/CakeParticles

For Details check the Documentation about the Addon https://sites.google.com/view/cakeparticlesdocs/home-page.

Now Avaiable on GitHub

It was Developed for 3.0+ but it should Be fine working on Previous Versions too, just Ignore the Message you Get when Installing it.

Here Some Examples of what Cake Particles can Do for you.

-BakeParticles into KeyFramed Objects(Duh)

SpearCreation VFX by ScaryPlasmon on Sketchfab

It Will Create a new Collection with your Particles Objects, keyframed to match the Simulation.

Useful for

-Particles Export into .fbxs

-Fluid Simulations

-Explosion Simulations (Particle System)

"Cake Particles would’ve not been possible without a Big Help from all the Developers that Posted their Answers at these Links in the Past https://tiny.one/StackExchange https://tiny.one/BartSketchfab"

Hope you’ll find this Useful, any FeedBack is Welcome.
For my Purposes, on Windows, works like a Charm. Hope you’ll enjoy this as I do

ulf3000 · May 5, 2022, 6:52pm

super useful

anon18318387 · May 6, 2022, 4:31am

Thanks for sharing.

Spirou4D · May 6, 2022, 5:56pm

Thanks you so much, yu’re an heros for us because your addon is free! Amazing job!

Andrea_Cicero · May 6, 2022, 9:06pm

*blushing
Emh Emh Thank you, let me know if you run into some troubles
Soon I’ll post some results achieved using this addon, feel free to do the same

Iqfish · May 23, 2022, 9:02am

Good Morning! Thanks for the lovely addon, it really helps a lot.

Is there a specific trick to baking particle systems with multiple different instance objects?

For example: I Have 9 different objects instanced as a collection in a particle system, but when I attempt to bake with your addon it only bakes one. A workaround I can imagine is dividing particle count by 9, baking each system with a different seed and then combining all outputs. But that is tedious and creates overlaps.

Thanks again!

Andrea_Cicero · May 23, 2022, 3:25pm

Hello There Constantin Unfortunately at the Moment Collection are not Supported.

For now the Only Possible WorKarounds are the Obvious one.

Now I’ll give a look at the Code to see if through some Changes it can actually Bake Collections.

For Instant Support Instead, the Best Work Around very much Depends on the Number of your Particles.

If you have a Small Number of Particles you can even modify them in Edit Mode. (Deleting the Old Geometry and put the New one in its place)
( you can do it with Great Numbers too but it’s very Tricky).

If you’re in a Rush let me know some Details about your Scene

If you were just Playing with the Addon let me come Back to you as soon as Collections are Supported (No timelines for now)

Andrea_Cicero · May 23, 2022, 9:27pm

Edit* the New Version Is Available at

Ver 1.1.0

Let Me know If it Works, I’ve Noticed that When Installing the Zip file it took a while ( Like 20-30 Second) so in Case Be patient

This was my Previous Reply

Hello there Constantin, Good News, I’ve found this Great Piece of Code on

that helped me Create this Script,

github.com

Scaryplasmon/CakeParticles/blob/main/Script for Collection Objects

import bpy


KEYFRAME_LOCATION = True
KEYFRAME_ROTATION = True
KEYFRAME_SCALE = True
KEYFRAME_VISIBILITY = False
KEYFRAME_VISIBILITY_SCALE = True

#Keep the Emitter Active and the Objects selected

def create_objects_for_particles(ps, ps_name, particles_coll):

    #deselect particle source
    bpy.data.objects[ps_name].select_set(False)

    # store a ref for every object to match every particle
    obj_list = []

    #loop through particles to make a copy for each

This file has been truncated. show original

run it into your Editor to Bake all the Objects you like.
Here’s a Small test

As you can See from the video it doesn’t matter if you’re Rendering a Collection or an Object, it Bakes Every Object you keep Selected. this way it will be Very Easy to Actually Implement this Function in to the Addon.
Also, For Now It Kinda Bakes all the Selected Objects in Order. so Depending on your Scene this can look a bit Strange

Let Me know if this Works For you and Stay Tuned for the Next Release where everything will be Button Like

Long_Thang · November 7, 2022, 5:53am

Thank you so much, your addon helps me a lot !

Andrea_Cicero · November 7, 2022, 8:13am

Hey There, thank you for your Feedback! It’s much appreciated, and welcome to the Community, feel free to hit me up if you ever run into some Troubles with it

melvi · November 12, 2022, 12:32am

Excellent work, man. Thanks a ton for making this.

Andrea_Cicero · November 12, 2022, 10:33am

Ahahah thank YOU for your FeedBack you made my Day, feel free to reach me out for any troubles

Vitaliy_Sokol · July 15, 2023, 2:03am

Does not work. This is Jul 2023 and I still can not bake particles to keyframes to reverse it.

Andrea_Cicero · July 15, 2023, 12:53pm

can you be more specific about what you’re trying to achieve and what exactly is not working?

Vitaliy_Sokol · July 17, 2023, 7:03pm

Sure. I want to Explode the text and reverse the explosion itself to make build effect.

If I use cell fracture and rigid body sim, it takes huge amount of time and too complicated to change some features particle system does. Even if I just flip the animation curves of selected rigid bodies by X*-1 it freakn freezes my computer for 5-10 minutes.

Andrea_Cicero · July 30, 2023, 4:11pm

Hi there! I’m not sure from what you say it looks like the Freezing very much depends on the Size of your Simulation!
I’ve tried on my end with a 100 particles or so and it works flawlessly, but i guess it can depend on a lot of different factors!

So I’ve released a more performant version of Cake Particles!
Now you can set a BakeStep that allows you to decide how Frequently it keyframes the Particle Objects!
So for Example a value of 1 will keyframe every frame, a value of 5 will keyframe every 5 frames!

It might be easier for you to use it like this! Bear in mind that it might be a bit Buggy, and nothing beats keyframing every frame! But nonetheless it might speed things up quite a lot!

I’m not sure if CakeParticles can do what you’re asking, but it you want to give it a try
You can find it here

Or here

or here as a source code among the mix

Best Of luck with your Project! Happy blending!