Will old particles system be upgraded with new tools and corresponding UI, faster simulation, rendering more particles ?
i have no idea, but i don’t think so, because geometry nodes should replace particles AFAIK. And GN is already so powerful that it can replace particles by 98% (i guess).
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The plan is to provide geometry nodes nodegroups assets able to replace the old system, to recreate particles integrators and provide new solvers as GN nodegroups.
Geometry Nodes will replace all the physics, not just the particles. And they will allow to mix simulations and partically bake them.
But for the moment, only the basis is settled. They just added Bake node in 4.1.
We only have demo files about simulating fluids and clothes with geometry nodes.
But for an artist, who is not very technical one, not at ease with math of such complicated physics. That may be a lot easier to continue with old particles and physics.
Don’t worry. When Geometry Nodes will be ready to provide same ease of use ; developers will not forget to remove old particles.
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This is why artists would like old particles system with UI being updated and with more creative control.
But that would not make sense to divide forces on updating old particles and slowing down progression of geometry nodes.
Old particles system has already been partially replaced by geometry nodes for Hair creation.
Except for hair animation simulation, there are understandable nodegroup assets to create hair curves. There is a new Curves object with new Sculpt mode and a new Edit mode to edit hairs.
Hair creation is a lot more intuitive and easy with more granularity with new workflow than with old particles.
The UI has just been transferred from Particles tab to Modifiers tab. User don’t have to display all old particles system setting. UI is just displaying settings of wanted modifiers/nodes.
If they were trying to update old particles system ; it would take years of development that would not contribute to future workflow with geometry nodes.
If it was simple to update particles, it would have been done, years ago or it would have been done by addon authors.
That is because physics are complicated ; that area is progressing slowly.
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To put it another way: They are rewriting the entire particle system, along with all the modifiers and physics systems. When complete it should be a lot more flexible. The way they are used might change, but it shouldn’t be anything too alien, and should hopefully become more intuitive.
I think really that’s all the answer your original question required. You should not need to look behind the curtain at what is underpinning it. The second geometry nodes get mentioned responses like yours seem inevitable, but what are you imagining a future geometry node implementation to look like that makes you believe the new system won’t do what you want?
The reason moving to a geometry nodes system look so scary at the moment is because you are mainly looking at the building blocks of an immature system, not the tools they are intended to create. There are plenty of assets and tools already made by the community from geometry nodes that don’t require you going into the node tree. There’s also the new hair system, which as zeauro states has a whole other set of functions to support it. Even though at its heart it works on nodes you wouldn’t necessarily know when using it.
I don’t think they’ll switch systems until the new one doesn’t require more understanding of maths or logic than the current ones do. Given they haven’t got all the required nodes to build these systems, that is still some way off. In the meantime, updating what is already there would be a big project, and would increase the timescale for any solution.
Yeah we are at a weird point where the old particle system feels old, and new geometry node a bit too complex.
Keep in mind that updating the particles system was one main motivation being GN.
Anyway, for now you have to stick to the old system, or you might look into some GN setup that might work for your case, I see them popping from time to time either here or on blendermarket.
That’s the hope, but frankly, so far geometry nodes just makes things more ‘technical’ and less artist friendly.
And that’s where things get more concerning really. I take it your hope things will be more intuitive are built on the expectation of said assets and tools.
As such I start to have a few problems with that.
- One now needs to go out and try to find/download these ‘node tools’.
- You actually need some idea of what you are looking for and what that may be called or how it would be done using nodes.
- Fair chance a cost will be involved, but how will you know it’s the right tool you need before you buy it?
- Now its no longer a standard Blender install, will those downloaded tools be updated for every future Blender release?
- What if you need to adjust or change something that’s not an already provided option, you need the technical knowledge to be able to dive in to the whole node tree, compared to now where one scrolls through the options panel, etc and it’s either there or just not possible.
- If more and more creation relies on these tools (likely 3rd party ones), then tutorials start to become a nightmare. It’s not a case of just download Blender, since then you will need to go and download this list of tools from various places. Will all of them be free?
At this stage, then more ‘development’ proceeds, the more concerned I get for any ‘artist’ that isn’t either technical/math minded or who doesn’t have a Simon Thommes sitting next to them.
In many ways the thought of future ‘rigging nodes’ just scares the hell out of me. Rigging alone is complicated enough and between various tutorials and using Rigify I’m mostly getting my head around it enough to do what I want.
But then they are going to add nodes on top of that, as a basic building blocks. So now one will have to try and work out what ‘blocks’ to use and how to join them together to maybe do something, on top of working out that actual something you want to do, as just part of rigging a character.
Now I hate to bring up those two letters that are all the rage right now, but if things keep moving to what seems to be more and more technical knowledge just to make a ‘pretty image’, then I won’t be surprised if more actually turn to AI and just type in a prompt to get what they want.
The current particle system was written… what, 12+ years ago? And from what Ive seen,was sort of basic and limited compared other software’s particle systems that are much older.
BF has spent countless hours developing and improving geonodes over the last few years, and still are. Legacy particle system not really touched.
So people can hope this dated system that no one is talking about updating getting updated, or start to learn nodes. In a year or two from now, you’ll either be somewhat comfortable with using nodes, or still be using the old system which hasn’t been updated.
hope that doesn’t imply you have to be a genius to do what you can do with old particles