shape instead of a brush tool.
The brush cutting tool for hair, while useful, is not very accurate and
often requires rotating the model constantly to get the right trimming
on every side. This makes adjustments to a hair shape a very tedious
process.
On the other hand, making proxy meshes for hair shapes is a common
workflow. The new operator allows using such rough meshes as boundaries
for hair. All hairs that are outside the shape mesh are removed, while
those cutting it at some length are shortened accordingly.
The operator can be accessed in the particle edit mode toolbar via the
"Shape Cut" button. The "Shape Object" must be set first and stays
selected as a tool setting for repeatedly applying the shape.
one solver anyway), and split some particle cloth functions for clarity.
Conflicts:
source/blender/blenkernel/BKE_particle.h
source/blender/blenkernel/intern/particle_system.c
source/blender/blenloader/intern/versioning_270.c
source/blender/makesdna/DNA_particle_types.h
source/blender/makesrna/intern/rna_particle.c
distribution and path caching for child particles.
This gives a significant improvement of viewport playback performance
with higher child particle counts. Particles previously used their own
threads and had a rather high limit for threading. Also threading
apparently was disabled because only 1 thread was being used ...
This is not necessary: the implicit solver data can keep track instead
of how many off-diagonal matrix blocks are in use (provided the
allocation limit is calculated correctly). Every time a spring is
created it then simply increments this counter and uses the block index
locally - no need to store this persistently.
Without this the particle system only shows the actual non-simulated
hairs ("guide hairs") during edit mode. These hairs are used for goals
as well, so showing them in the regular viewport is pretty important.
Also the usual hair curves are interpolated along the entire length,
which makes it very difficult to see exact vertex positions, unless
using exact powers of 2 for the segment number and match the display
steps.
Conflicts:
source/blender/blenkernel/intern/particle.c
The curl radius for children in interpolated mode was calculated using
the total offset from the parent particle. This leads to very large
radii when the distance is large due to sparse parents. Such behavior is
also very unrealistic because the curl radius is mostly constant and
defined by the material properties.
All the child hairs are roughly parallel by default. To simulate the
agglomeration of children into hair wisps the "flatness" parameter is
now used to clump them together.
With the default 5 substeps the simulation can otherwise still become
unstable. This is just a preliminary measure anyway until the length
variance can be fixed properly.
This is more involved than using simple straight bending targets
constructed from the neighboring segments, but necessary for restoring
groomed rest shapes.
The targets are defined by parallel-transporting a coordinate frame
along the hair, which smoothly rotates to avoid sudden twisting (Frenet
frame problem). The rest positions of hair vertices defines the target
vectors relative to the frame. In the deformed motion state the frame
is then recalculated and the targets constructed in world/root space.
derivatives for stabilization.
The bending forces are based on a simplified torsion model where each
neighboring point of a vertex creates a force toward a local goal. This
can be extended later by defining the goals in a local curve frame, so
that natural hair shapes other than perfectly straight hair are
supported.
Calculating the jacobians for the bending forces analytically proved
quite difficult and doesn't work yet, so the fallback method for now
is a straightforward finite difference method. This works very well and
is not too costly. Even the original paper ("Artistic Simulation of
Curly Hair") suggests this approach.
This returns a general status (success/no-convergence/other) along with
basic statistics (min/max/average) for the error value and the number
of iterations. It allows some general estimation of the simulation
quality and detection of critical settings that could become a problem.
Better visualization and extended feedback can follow later.
This makes the bending a truely local effect. Eventually target
directions should be based in a local coordinate frame that gets
parallel transported along the curve. This will allow non-straight
rest shapes for hairs as well as supporting twist forces. However,
calculating locally transformed spring forces is more complicated.
These are much better suited for creating stiff hair. The previous
bending springs are based on "push" type spring along the hypothenuse
of 3 hair vertices. This sort of spring requires a very large force
in the direction of the spring for any angular effect, and is still
unstable in the equilibrium.
The new bending spring model is based on "target" vectors defined in a
local hair frame, which generates a force perpendicular to the hair
segment. For further details see
"Artistic Simulation of Curly Hair" (Pixar technical memo #12-03a)
or
"A Mass Spring Model for Hair Simulation" (Selle, Lentine, Fedkiw 2008)
Currently the implementation uses a single root frame that is not yet
propagated along the hair, so the resulting rest shape is not very
natural. Also damping and derivatives are still missing.
single transform matrix.
Dynamic properties of the transformation are only needed during the
setup phase when they should be read from external data (hair system
roots) and generate fictitious forces on each point.
This is part of the original method from "Volumetric Methods for
Simulation and Rendering of Hair". The current filter is a simple box
filter. Other energy-preserving filters such as gaussian filtering
can be implemented later.
The filter size is currently given as a cell count. This is not ideal,
rather it should use a geometrical length value, but this is too
abstract for proper artistical use. Eventually defining the whole grid
in terms of spatial size might work better (possibly using an external
object).
at a the margin distance ("outer" softbody margin).
This has to be clamped arbitrarily unfortunately, otherwise the
repulsion force can add too much energy into the system. A factor of
4 * restitution impulse seems to give good results for now, this can
be refined later on if necessary.
This is now also decoupled from the internal solver data. The grid is
created as an opaque structure, filled with vertex or collider data
(todo), and then forces can be calculated by interpolating the grid at
random locations. These forces and derivatives are then fed into the
solver.
The hair solver needs sane input to converge within reasonable time
steps. In particular the spring lengths must not be too difference
(factor 0.01..100 or so max, this is comparable to rigid body simulation
of vastly different masses, which is also unstable).
The basic hair system generate strands with equally spaced points, which
is good solver material. However, the hair edit operators, specifically
the cutting tool, can move points along the strands, creating tightly
packed hair points. This puts the solver under enormous stress and
causes the "explosions" observed already during the Sintel project.
The simple solution for now is to exclude very short hairs from the
simulation. Later the cutting tool should be modified such that it
keeps the segments roughly at the same length and throws away vertices
when the hair gets too short (same goes for the extension tool).
The hair system should have a general mechanism for making sure that
situations such as this don't occur. This will have to be a design
consideration for replacements in any future hair system.
moving hair root reference frames.
This calculates Euler, Coriolis and Centrifugal forces which result
from describing hair in a moving reference frame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_force
frames.
These forces don't have to be calculated for each individual
contribution. Rather they can be split off and be calculated on top of
the basic force vector rotation (todo).
There are currently 3 types of springs: basic linear springs, goal
springs toward a fixed global target (not recommended, but works) and
bending springs.
These are agnostic to the specific spring definition in the cloth system
so hair systems can use the same API without converting everything to
cloth first.
Conflicts:
source/blender/physics/intern/implicit_blender.c
