The New Particles .. let's figure them out

I don’t know of any documentation on the changes to the particle system, so if anyone has any helpful tips, leave them here. I still don’t know what the hell is going on, so let me start the ball rolling, with the question: What’s the eqivalent to pressing the ‘static’ button?
So, if anyone knows that, or anything else about them, post what you know, and soon we’ll have some crude documentation on the recent changes

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewrite_Doc

Here is the WIP documentation:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewrite_Doc

The equivalent of static particles (for fur and hair) is to use the Hair type (in the menu that says Emitter in the Particle System Panel). If you want static particulate (literally) I don’t actually know how to do that.

EDIT: Oops… too slow

Ah, didn’t realize there was documentation in progress. Well, that’s good to know.

Olivier Saraja is on it. He is a great documenter and author but that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t help with good use examples and stuff here.

I have to say my first test renders with the new particles with SSS is proving that it’s possible to get a thick, and also photorealistic look to it in BI.

I’m not using the special strand render because I need them raytraced, but the adaptive options really make up for that.

I seem to be having trouble getting the hairs to leave the rest position with this model. Is there a certain setting I should be looking for. I’ve tried converting the object, deleting and adding the particles system. It just won’t move:no:.

Strange because this hasn’t happened with meh other meshes.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8972/spideglitchjm6.jpg

Edit: NM. Had to make the Armature first in the stack, not the particle system.

I didn’t try this SVN version yet, but this look like a modifier problem. Like your particle system would be calculated before the armature is applied. Or it’s just not coded yet?

Is there I way to use a UV texture to affect the Fur color?

Yes there is a way. You should enable the surface diffuse in the - link and pipeline panel - strand.
Which light to use with the new strand render option because when i enable it ( The strand render ) I get unrealistic shadow with buffer shadow on in the spot light shadow option. When enable ray shadow, there is no shadow appear, did I miss something?

Enabling surface diffuse still yields the same results.:spin:

The fur color is affected when I use Orco (bleh), but when I use UV it is all one color.

Keypointstrands are not seen by raytracing - so no reflection (except environment maps) and no rayshadows.

Yes, works quite straightforward. Unwrap your object, and apply your UV-Texture as usual (but not with TexFace). If you can see it on your object, the strands will be shaded with it. You may use different materials for your surface and the strands though.

I saw on the Peach blog that they made separate uv painted textures for the strand bases and tips – anyone have an idea how to do that?

Surface diffuse only blends the surface normal of the mesh into the normal of the strand – it has nothing to do with base colors.

Hi

Just blend two textures using gradient

the progress made between the old particles for hair ang this one is great. i just have a problem trying to render children. above “2” and everything crashes. you cant go back and edit settings without loosing everything else. rendering the new hair looks great.

You can use a UV texture for the hole strand (including transparency), but this does not work with keypointstrands, only with the traditional polygonstrands (as of now that is).

It is a bit strange to set it up.

  • Unwrap your mesh.
  • Type in the name of the UV texture coordinates in the field “UV” in the strands buttons in the Links and Pipeline panel.
  • Now load the image as a regular UV texture (not with TexFace) and use all the mappings you like.

Great flexibility, especially because you can edit the strands interactively or use animations on them.

Really? Using the newest SVN I rendered something out that uses a mesh with 10-20 particles with 3000 children particles each and a mesh using a bunch of starting particles and 75 children particles without crashing.

i used 1000+ parents and anything hire than 2, maybe if i do the exact opposite i wont crash.

This is awesome!!!:eek:

What I’m trying to do, though, is use a texture to define the color of the fur around the mesh. Is this possible? Like, making the strand take the color of whatever is beneath it.

This works when using Orco, but I’ve yet to get it to work with UV.:spin:

That would work out a lot better, i think

Edit: Wait…eh… I confuse…