Dev:Ref/Outdated/Proposals/UI/Info Architecture/Dynamics/Particles

Particles buttons DRAFT WORK IN PROGRESS

Currently Emilie McDavid and myself (Chris Burt) are working on analyzing the structure and function of Blender's particle buttons. We first looked at each button's function and came up with 8 general attributes that all particles in a particle system share. They are:

• Speed/Rotation
• Direction
• Path/Source
• Multiplication/Amount
• Life Span
• Appearance
• Type (Static/Animated)

Every particles button inside the Effects panel falls into one of these categories. However, there obviously won't be 8 panels for particles. A quick glance at this list reveals that even further grouping is possible. We were able to place each of these attributes into one of the following three categories that control the characteristics of a particle system:

• Motion
  • Speed/Rotation
  • Direction
  • Path/Source
• Visualization
  • Appearance
  • Type
• Quantity
  • Multiplication/Amount
  • Life Span

Furthermore, every particles button fits into one of these 8 categories. We grouped them as follows:

• Motion
  • Speed/Rotation
    • Norm
    • Ob
    • Tex
    • Rand
    • Damp
    • Vect + Vect Size
  • Direction
    • Force X, Y, Z
    • Int
      • Texture X
      • Texture Y
      • Texture Z
    • RGB
    • Grad + Nabla
  • Path/Source
    • BSpline
    • Keys
    • Face
• Visualization
  • Appearance
    • Mat
    • RecalcAll
    • Seed
  • Type
    • Static
    • Animate
• Quantity
  • Multiplication/Amount
    • Tot
    • Step
    • CurMul
    • Child
    • Mult
    • Life
  • Life Span
    • Sta
    • End
    • Life
    • RndLife

Looking at the current layout, the clutter is more than apparent. The New Effect button, the Delete button, the RecalcAll button, the Static button and the Effect dropdown take up a great deal of space on the panel and do not reflect a UI design consitent with other aspects of Blender. A prime example of how particles differ from other aspects of Blender is that particle systems, unlike materials, cannot be named and reused as if they are a datablock. Implementing particle systems as a datablock is essentially out of the scope of this project, however, if it were accomplished, it would add consistency and usability to the feature. This section of the document will assume that this functionality has been added, and particle systems themselves are no longer part of the Effects panel. With this in mind, our proposed layout becomes easier to visualize. Below is a sample image of what this new functionality might look like if implemented now:

<img src="pub/particles_panel.png" style="border: solid black 1px;">

-- DeveloperWikiChrisBurt - 08 Dec 2004