Set your object instead of example Grid. UV unwrap and add 3 vertex color layers in Object Data panel. Set each layer to use pure Red, Green, Blue by numbers on color picker. Paint each vertex color layer as you need, like in link you provided, using only Brush Color vertical slider (from black to white).
Render out composite vertex color image using material node setup example.
The method 3ds max is describing has to do with rigging the leafs and assigning giggle movement using Vertex paint. If you want to do it that way you probably need to use Bones and “hook” to get the same setup. Lots of work. No point. 3ds max has special function to do that faster.
With Blender, there is Physical simulation tools. First method that came to my mind was to use Cloth simulation with Wind Force Field. You set the object as a cloth with “pining” restraint and let Blender animate it. Here is my test sequence:
Here is my pinning scheme for the leaf: red is completely rigid and as the color go blue cloth is less restrained and it can move.
Keep in mind that when you weigh paint there are just too many tools in the Tool shelf. But, basically you need to give each vertex a weight value. So all I do is to set the brush strength all the way up to 1, and paint with given weight. That way you don’t end up trying to mix color on the screen hoping to get a right color! Remember that red is 100% weight setting and totally rigid.
What i understand, the goal is to use blender to paint object vertices to get certain vertex color mix for CryEngine allowing to use features there:
How Vertex Colors affect Detail Bending (in CryEngine) All three channels are used to control the movement of the geometry.
Color RGB Value Influence
Red 100/0/0 irregular bending at the outsides - movement of smaller shapes
Green 0/100/0 delays the start of the movement - use to create variations
Blue 0/0/100 bend the leave up and down - moves the big shapes NOTE: Due to the fact that all three channels have different influences, it is crucial, that they are viewed and edited separately.
NOTE being most important part.
I have no idea what exporter would be used to correctly export vertex colors and mesh out of Blender (instead of 3dsmax)- for .obj there is no support for mesh vertex-colors, however correct mix would still need 3 vertex color layers mixed like in example to give needed color- coded information.
There is no soft-selection as far as i know, but everything else seems to be possible with Blender
In Vertex paint mode, click on the long rectangular color field (below the color circle) in Tool shelf
Type R, G and B values manually when setting the color to get proper red, green and blue (for blue e.g. 0, 0 and 1)
I’d set color to black and hit Shift + K to fill everything with black. Then change to “F Add” brush by clicking on the large button below Brush panel header in Tool shelf. But you can also enable Add mode in menu for current brush: Brush > Vertex / weight paint tool > Add
Then paint on the object, change color, paint etc.
//edit:
exporting separate vertex color layers sounds difficult indeed, not sure if FBX or Collada support this. But either way, you’d probably have to edit the export code to mix the colors.
I try to achieve the same for Unity at the moment. The vertex colour gets exported with FBX. This works without problems.
There was a script for Blender 2.4x, called vertexpaint_gradient.py. Which could be very useful here for gradient painting the whole tree so that the wind doesn`t blow the meshparts apart. Unfortunately this gots removed in 2.5x.
Could somebody please poke a developer to resurrect the script
