[Bf-committers] Undergraduate Research

Wed May 22 22:01:39 CEST 2013

Ronan: I was talking about the old Fracture Tools addon. I wasn't aware of
the Cell Fracture addon and have since looked at it. IT definitely seems
much better, and while I think some of the Rayfire aspects could have good
potential for improving object breakup, it may not be a good project idea
since as you say, so much of it is already implemented.

Ton: Thanks for all the info. I'll look into volume rendering before I jump
into IRC.

Thanks,
Scott

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 6:07 AM, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org> wrote:

> Hi Scott,
>
> The final decisions by Google for accepted projects will get published on
> 27th of May. Until then we can't say anything about it unfortunately.
>
> In general coding work is always welcome though, especially in the area of
> fluid simulation. There are not many experts for it though, you might
> consider to join our irc channel at irc.freenode.net #blendercoders, and
> seek contact with Daniel Genrich there.
>
> Our todo wiki and open topics for Blender is quite messy in places, I know.
>
> But, apart from simulation code itself, there's a very interesting related
> area in Blender that's entirely orphaned - Volume rendering for Blender's
> internal render. It has a distinct section in our wiki todo with links to
> open issues (bug reports). You could check on that?
>
> Regards,
>
> -Ton-
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
> Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute
> Entrepotdok 57A  -  1018AD Amsterdam  -  The Netherlands
>
>
>
> On 20 May, 2013, at 7:15, Scott Aufderheide wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > For this upcoming fall semester, I will be doing undergraduate research
> for
> > a professor who does some work in graphics and visual effects. Even
> though
> > this is for the fall, I was hoping to get a jump start on it during the
> > summer, but I have yet to choose a topic to delve into. I want to do
> > something with Blender as I have been using it for a couple years and
> > really enjoy it, plus I feel that I may be able to do something
> worthwhile
> > as I'll have at least seven months to dedicate to it.
> >
> > I am very comfortable with C and C++, I am pretty familiar with python,
> and
> > I have some CUDA experience as well. For a project last fall, I looked at
> > implementing different noise functions (Wavelet vs Curl) for Blender's
> > smoke simulator to compare their effect on render times, and investigated
> > how they could be used to better simulate fire. For this past semester, I
> > just finished writing an addon for Blender that simulates swarm
> > intelligence using a flocking algorithm (I got the idea for the project
> > before I learned about boids particles). The addon takes user input to
> > define some swarm properties, and then parallelizes the computation of
> the
> > motion paths for each swarm object on the GPU using CUDA, and then
> animates
> > the objects.
> >
> > I tried looking at the projects and todo pages, but I was somewhat
> confused
> > on what I found there. It seemed like many of things mentioned were for
> > previous releases, particularly since the phrases "...for 2.5/2.6..."
> were
> > found throughout, and I was wondering if anyone might be able to direct
> me
> > to more recent proposal and project areas.
> >
> > I suppose the timing is a little awkward as the GSoC proposals are still
> > being reviewed, but a number of those projects seemed like they would be
> > very interesting. I was first looking at the modifier section under the
> > GSOC ideas since it said,
> >
> >    "Modifiers are probably one of the best introductions to coding new
> > modeling tools. Modifiers
> >    have a well-defined API (DerivedMesh comes in, new DerivedMesh goes
> > out), so the student
> >    need learn only a small part of Blender's internals before becoming
> > productive.",
> >
> > and learning Blender's internals is probably what intimidates me the
> most.
> > I was thinking of trying to implement something similar to
> > this<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_2qKQpxCRw> as
> > a potential modifier project. I know that Blender currently has the
> > Fracture addon, but I feel like this is a very limited tool, where
> > something similar to Rayfire's Crack would be much more dynamic for
> > allowing users to break up objects. Two potential problems with this
> though
> > would be, first: that I have no idea about the legal
> > ramifications/restrictions on trying to copy (to a degree) what someone
> > else has done, albeit for a different program and we aren't trying to
> sell
> > it. And second: I noticed that in messing around with the fracture addon
> > that it slows down or even stops Blender when you try to break an object
> > too many times at once. I wasn't sure if this was from the addon trying
> to
> > compute too many things or Blender from trying to process the addon's
> > output to the viewport (I was only considering this second option as I
> > noticed Blender slowed down some when I tried creating too many swarm
> > objects simultaneously in my own addon). For this, I suppose I would have
> > to wait and see how the modifier performed and take it from there.
> >
> > The other GSOC idea that seemed interesting to me was the thin fluids
> > feature for the fluid simulation. My only concern with this is that due
> to
> > my inexperience, I am not sure that I could fully complete it in the time
> > I'd have for the semester (again, Blender internal/integration fears). In
> > working with the smoke simulator before, I was quite a bit lost in
> > everything and kept my small changes to only two files for fear of
> breaking
> > everything when trying to recompile. I like the challenge of this
> project,
> > but I think I would need someone with some more experience who would be
> > willing to help guide me and be willing to put up with (probably) some
> > pestering and (potentially) noob questions.
> >
> > All that being said, I know that someone else was interested in the thin
> > fluids feature as their own GSOC project. I think Ton said that the final
> > slot allocation due date was the 22nd, so I suppose I would have to wait
> > until then to see if thin fluids has been taken.
> >
> > Additionally, I am looking into getting my feet wet with shaders or
> > textures or rendering. For the first two, I wasn't really sure where to
> > start looking for anything so I thought I might ask if anyone is doing
> work
> > or wants work to be done in those areas, and if so, if they might want to
> > discuss things further. And for rendering, I know a lot is being done
> with
> > Cycles right now, but I again was hoping that I might be able to talk
> with
> > someone on project ideas just because there is so much there.
> >
> > My apologies on the length of this email, but I thought I should explain
> > myself a bit. My main hope in reaching out here is that no matter what I
> > might work on, I am hoping that I am able to find someone willing to
> > discuss problems and implementations in a mentor role for a while,
> despite
> > the fact that I am not part of GSOC.
> >
> > Thanks for your time and all the work you guys do.
> >
> > Scott Aufderheide
> > University of Notre Dame
> > Computer Science 2014
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-committers mailing list
> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>