haha, just had to mention: i read that as: “four panels of confusion” at first! 
PS. maybe there should be a thread here on BA for people to ask for wiki editing rights at?
It’s right on the main wiki page, but HEREit is! I just had one user ask and am waiting to hear back. I am willing to mentor anyone; e.g. CD38 wrote the RenderBake page with me. So, PM me once you have rights (I don’t approve you, I just am here to help). When you are approved, please adhere to all the guidelines, styles and conventions. Thanks!
yes, im well aware of that page! 
ehh… ok, enough of off topic, i guess… 
sorry, felix, that wasn’t directed to you specifically, but to anyone who reads this thread, gets a good fire simulator together, and wants to share it with the world. The wiki is the best place for that, either in advice in using the new particles (User Manual) or in writing a tutorial on fire (Tutorials) or in specific things that a value does (Reference). Of course, you and all the people from Estonia are more than welcome to help out too!
Hi guys,
My name is François Grassard (http://www.coyhot.com) and i’m the creator of this fire.
Firstable sorry for my probably bad english and thanks a lot for your great feedbacks and greatings. You make me really happy 
I made the fire effects several months ago using the jahka particles patch, before his integration in the SVN branch. Since the patch is include in SVN, lot of functions disappeared and it’s really hard to create this fire again with the actual SVN.
Here his some features i used for this fire that does not exist anymore in SVN :
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Ability to sculpt trajectories of any particles’ type (not only hair). FYI, this feature is only available in XSI and it’s really slower than in Jahka’s Patch. This is the best feature for me !!!
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The new Bake system work in a really strange way … i have to click on the “Clear cache” every ten seconds. Furthermore, i used two particle systems for this fire (The secondary system is emited by the primary system). I have to cache the primary system first, keep it all the time then cache the secondary. But when i click the “Clear Cache” button, the two caches are deleted, even if i want to keep the first.
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I used “object” visualisation mode. In the last SVN, each instance is display according the position of this “object” and not the world position of each particle.
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Assign a field to only one particles system
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The Vec pass doesn’t work every time to generate motion blur via the “Vector Blur” node (and motion blur is a key step to generate this fire)
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The cache files can only be create if i save my scene on hard drive
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With the SVN, cache is made in “real time”, not faster than real time like jahka’s system.
I know the Blender Team is hard working on hair for Peach and i’d like to thanks you for that … but guys, when jahka develloped his patch, Blender had, for me, the best particles system ever (and i work with Maya’s particles since 10 years !!!)
Hair is an important feature, i totally agree with that … but creating realistic fire, explosions, smoke is also realy important (Especially for a VFX guy like me)
Just one example :
When i used the Jahka’s branch, i made great tornados in two minutes using two particle’s subsystems: One first stream using a simple particles generator and a second using rotating children’s. I used the billboard visualisation type with some fractals and voila ! Great render, quick render, great animation … and incredible control level using the “particle mode” to Sculpt the trajectorie of the initial stream.
The original patch can be used as a emulation of Maya’s PaintFX to paint some Trees, Building, Grass, and many more … i’ll mail jahka about that many months ago.
Today, i can’t make this wonderfull effect again with the actual system in SVN. Secretly, I’d like to see the original jahka’s system back … possibly with the new features about hair, even if a VFX guy like me and prefer fire/explosion/smoke effect.
As you can see on my website in the “Research” section, l used the original system to crash a reactor in thousands of parts … it’s a realy complex effect and the robustness of the original patch was awesome to use.
So, dear developers, tell me if i have a chance to see this functions back. If they will … i’ll promise to made several wonderfull tutorials for the Blender Website about creating special effects with this wonderfull software. I’ll really believe that Blender can be used in production with really complex visual effects … and it will be a pleasure for me to proove that to the world !!!
Thanks again for your work !!! Brecht and Ton, if you wan’t to mail me to discuss directly about that, copy your reply to [email protected] because i have some time some problems with my domain name. Thx !!! :eyebrowlift2:
CoyHot, the old version of jahka’s particles sounds great, though you have to admit hair and fur is important for characters. i hope we can get the best of both svn and old version.
Yes of course, you’re right. Hair/Fur is a really great feature and i’m really happy to see it there too.
Like you, i hope the overall features of the the two systems will be merged … :eyebrowlift:
Wow! Very impressive demo that is. Thanks for the reply here and for sharing hints about your methods, (especially the “tornado in 2 minutes”). Maybe a bit over my head at this time -but not enough to keep me from downloading the old builds at graphical.org to find the “old” patch you used, and see if I can figure out your methods (doubtful). I figure old patch or not, if it renders it can be used.
In the meantime… you wouldn’t by any chance share your blend files would ya? If you think they would help, and if you don’t mind the barrage of questions that will sure to follow… uhhh…hmm, on second thought, maybe not such a good idea… I shouldn’t even ask, but I’ll leave this request here just in case. 
Thanks again.
.
I’m sure Jahka will keep improving his particle system and adding features.
Having a stable version in the trunk was most important, lets just hope he’ll continue working on it soon, bringing it to a level of Houdini perhaps ?
I hope jahka will reply regarding CoyHot remarks.
To CoyHot: Your videos in Gallery/Research website are really really great!
Hey guys, and sorry I haven’t been able to be around lately.
I’ll definately continue to add functionality to the new particle system, but the current goal is just to get things stable and working, even if it means that many features will have to be cut out for now as they’re just not finished or they conflict with something that the Peach team needs. So fear not, I think that sculpting particle trajectories is a very good feature and will start figuring it out again once the Peach-svn-freeze is over.
Also the point cache system that replaced baking is not yet finished, but as hair is priority 1. for Peach the dynamic side of particles has had less coder attention.
But anyways, don’t worry, I’m not done with particles yet
p.s. I actually like the dynamic side of particles much better than hair (originally I didn’t intend to include hair at all), but with Peach the hair side of particles has kind of stolen the show… I just mean to say that dynamics will definately be the thing I’ll concentrate on once Peach is over.
Dear jahka,
thank you very much for clarification.
Hurrrrrrrrrrrrray !!!
it seems CoyHot will be making a tutorial on fire in the future
Cant wait for Peach to be released and the particle system to be stable ! one of the best features in development for Blender imho ( right after the video tracking )
Please Jahka, make something for the cache before the freeze !
Softbody + Cloth + Particules in the same scene and the cache must be cleared at each change of one of them ! Change settings… Alt+A… bad result… change settings… erf, i must clear the cache… where is the panel… Ok, clear the cache… Alt+A… argh the cache become crazy… must clear all the cache before… Go to softbody… clear… Go to particules… clear… Go to particules… clear… Alt+A… bad result… aaaaaargh ! clear clear clear !
It is what Coyhot say :
- The new Bake system work in a really strange way … i have to click on the “Clear cache” every ten seconds. Furthermore, i used two particle systems for this fire (The secondary system is emited by the primary system). I have to cache the primary system first, keep it all the time then cache the secondary. But when i click the “Clear Cache” button, the two caches are deleted, even if i want to keep the first."
With softbody, cloth and particules using the same cache, it’s boring to have to clear each time we want to change one setting. And if we not make it, the result is false and it is necessary to relaunch every simulation every time. 
Oh and you have a bug specially for you in the bugtracker (#7885) and perhaps #7940 (Coyhot citation : The cache files can only be create if i save my scene on hard drive).
Hi
I agree with Coyhot remarks ;).
The particules system (Jahka) had some very goods tools and it would be really really great to have all theses fonctions in the new release (or in a futur release).
Fur and Hair is excellent, but smoke, fire, explosions is important too.
I use a lot of particules system for my FX in the game and the animations movies (professionnals) that I make.
It’s an (old) example of particules system I have used in my game (moonkiroe) :
Technic : I make a rendering animation (in png - RGBA)) and convert it to Gif for my game. So I use some particules sytem in the animation movie I make for the game too.
Thank you Jahka for your answer, I hope we will have the two “systems” in blender
And thanks all the devs for the very good work you make ;).
Bye
I’ve been staring at the four panels of controls on the new particle system, and thinking "How the heck can I write a User Manual for this?
Since I am writing for the german wikibook at least for 1 1/2 year I think the documentation of particles should be splitted into two parts. The new particle system not only is “one function” but a “make hair, fire, explosions, boids, snow, clouds, plants and more” cluttered application. I think the only solution can be a tecnical description of what every button implies and on the other hand, what one can do with this button or panel in certain circumstances.
I would love to see a Maya Paint FX system in Blender. It’s fun, fast and the results are wonderful.
The mind explodes when thinking about what Blender 2.51 will be like 
WIKI AUTHORS: I’ve taken the liberty of starting a Sandox page for this discussion. I see that for this complicated thang, all the resources of the Wiki must work together. Please visit and comment so we can move forward in a comprehensive manner. thanks.
So a lot of features have been removed to get things stable and hair stole the show as it’s needed for Peach, yet Jahka likes the VFX side of particles and will concentrate on that again.
Not to worry, a while after the Peach feature freeze we may not only have incredible hair, but incredible VFX capability as well.