Bullet integration in Blender 2.66?

melviso

Been using Blender so far and loving it.
This is what I am working on using Blender-



I am a little confused about the bullet engine integration in 2.66.What I am gathering is that with 2.66,u do not need to enter game mode to run realtime simulations.Does this include bullet softbody without going into game mode?

I don't know how I am going to pin the arm cloth to the model as for the cloth hanging from his waist,I could use rigid body constriants to hang the cloth and use a child modifier to get the constriants to follow the character.
Is there a way one can paint values to the cloth to determine which parts move and stay pinned for bullet physics softbody?


Thanks.

ProperSquid

The new Bullet integration is for ridged body simulations only (boxes, cars, stuff that doesn't bend). If you want to simulate cloth inside the viewport, you can use the cloth modifier.

The user docs for the cloth modifier is way behind, but the controls between Blender 2.4x to 2.66 should be the same.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Physics/Cloth

melviso

Thanks ProperSquid for clarifying.I am guessing the cloth modifier isn't realtime but I am wondering if one can bake out bullet soft bodies simulated in game mode to keyframes?
Another cool thing they should add is viewport support for transperent shadows.Right now it works only in game mode.

xrg

CGCookie put up a tutorial the other day on the cloth simulation. Not sure if you can bake it out for your purposes or not though. It's not really an area/workflow of Blender I've explored much.

ProperSquid

I'm not actually sure if the soft bodies can be baked out form the game engine. My instinct says no.

The cloth sim is kinda sorta real time. You wouldn't be able to use it in the game engine, but it simulates fast enough (depending on the number of verticies you have).

melviso

@xrg
Thanks,xrg.I checked out that tutorial a few hours ago.I was reluctant to use it because coming from Maya,I expected simulations to be very heavy and time consuming.Not to mention in the tutorial,the instructor stated the simulations were sped up as each simulation was about 5 mins or thereabout but I am guessing its because the mesh resolution of the cloth was very high.I tried it and it was fast.Thats surprising.

@ProperSquid
Thanks a lot.It is indeed realtime.U can even move objects around while its simulating and the collisions are perfect.Wow!!No wonder the devs didn't bother to integrate bullet softbody(definitely needs some fine tunning).I agree..I think bullet softbodies can't be baked but cloth can be baked.

I also wanted to ask about ssao(screen space ambient occlusion),dof(depth of field),reflections and refractions especially.I don't know if Blender's viewport supports this.I know ssao,dof are available in game mode.Reflections and refractions can be faked with scripts to show up in game mode but its there a workaround or plugin to get these features in blender's viewport without game mode on?

ProperSquid

Currently, no. I believe there are some projects to increase the capabilities of the viewport, but nothing in trunk/ official release yet.

melviso

Thanks ProperSquid.Its kinda disappointing all those features are only available in BGE and not the viewport.I am suspecting they are seperate for a reason?maybe the viewport can't handle all those filters/effects but the engine can.
I have decided to dive into bge.Gonna miss cloth though.If the viewport can look this good.It will definitely look way gorgeous with all the features bge has to offer.

I just found out bge does not support constriants.Cloud's sword has a copy transforms constriants whenever I switch to bge mode,the sword goes back to its original position or does bge use different constriants?

Another problem is I don't know if animated cameras can work in the bge like for cinematics.I have to admit the logic brick is kinda complex.Kinda not cool that just to make use of these features one has to learn bge when u are only interested in making cinematics/animation and not a game.

Btw,ProperSquid.Have u been using bge?From ur posts,it seems u know a lot about what the engine is capable of.If so,I would appreciate any help I can get.
Thanks.