taichi-dev / taichi_blend

Taichi Blender intergration for physics simulation and animation

Taichi Blend

Taichi Blender intergration for creating physic-based animations.

Examples: https://github.com/taichi-dev/taichi_blend/tree/master/numblend_examples.

Taichi repo: https://github.com/taichi-dev/taichi.

Taichi documentation: https://taichi.readthedocs.io/en/stable.

Taichi 中文文档: https://taichi.readthedocs.io/zh_CN/latest.

Taichi forum: https://forum.taichi.graphics.

Video tutorial series (Bilibili)

• EP0 - installation
• EP1 - wave of cubes
• EP2 - water wave simulation
• EP3 - simple SDF ray tracer
• EP4 - physics node system
• EP5 - real-time soft renderer
• EP6 - MPM solver nodes

Subscribe my channel <https://space.bilibili.com/263032155> for future updates. Also join our QQ group 1124405621 for discussing this addon.

How to install

1. Goto the Blender Scripting window, type these commands into the Python shell:

   import sys
   import platform
   major = sys.version_info.major
   minor = sys.version_info.minor
   assert major == 3 and minor in [6, 7, 8], "Only Python 3.6/3.7/3.8 is supported"
   
   ver = str(major) + str(minor)
   plat = sys.platform
   
   if plat.startswith('win'):
      plat = 'win'
   elif plat.startswith('linux'):
      plat = 'linux'
   elif plat.startswith('darwin') or plat.startswith('mac'):
      plat = 'osx'
   else:
      assert 0, "Invalid platform: {}".format(sys.platform)
   
   if platform.architecture()[0] == '32bit':
      assert 0, "Only 64-bit Blender is supported"
   
   file = 'Taichi-Blend-{}-{}.zip'.format(plat, ver)
   print('You should download', file)

   It may shows, for example:

   You should download Taichi-Blend-win-37.zip

2. Go to the release page, choose one of the ZIP files to download, according to the You should download generated by the code above. Download Taichi-Blend-win.zip for Windows users for example.

   NOTE: For the convenience of Chinese users, you may download from the mirror release page for better network speed :)

3. Go back to the Blender, and follow these steps:

   Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Install

4. In the pop-up installation window, select the file Taichi-Blend.zip we just download.
5. Then you should see an item named Physics: Taichi Blend, click the check on the left side to enable it.
6. Try import taichi as ti in the shell to confirm that installation is complete.

If you encounter any problems, please report by opening an issue, many thanks!

How to play

1. Create a new General scene in Blender, delete the default Cube.
2. Go to the Scripting window, press New to create a new script (text).
3. Paste some example scripts to the editor.
4. Press the play button to run the script. Blender may stuck a while for the first launch.
5. Go back to Layout window. Press SPACE and you should see particles to move. May stuck a while at first frame.

Included packages

Installing this bundle (Taichi-Blend.zip) will allows you to use these packages:

• numblend - utilities to interface Blender with NumPy and create animations [source] <https://github.com/taichi-dev/taichi_blend/tree/master/src/bundle-packages/numblend
• taichi - the Taichi programming langurage [repo] [doc]
• taichi_glsl - some handy helper functions for Taichi [repo] [doc]
• taichi_elements - a high-performance MPM solver written in Taichi [repo] [doc]
• taichi_three - a extensible soft rendering pipeline based on Taichi [repo] [doc]

And these submodules as extra addons:

• meltblend - a node-based MPM solver for continuum physics simulation.
• realtimetina - a real-time rasterization-based renderer [repo].
• ptina - an GPU-accelerated path tracing renderer.