Dynamic Paint Canvas

Canvas main panel.

Paint Surface

A list of Dynamic Paint surfaces. These surfaces are basically layers of paint, that work independently from each other. You can define individual settings for them and bake them separately.

Show Preview (eye icon)

If surface type/format allows previewing results in 3D View, this toggle is visible.

Is Active

The checkbox toggles whether surface is active at all. If not selected, no calculations or previews are done.

Below you can set surface type and adjust quality and timing settings.

Format

Each surface has a certain format and type. Format determines how data is stored and outputted.

Vertex

Dynamic Paint operates directly on mesh vertex data. Results are stored by point cache and can be displayed in viewports. However, using vertex level also requires a highly subdivided mesh to work.

Image Sequences

Dynamic Paint generates UV wrapped image files of defined resolution as output.

Quality: Resolution

For image sequences – From quality settings you can adjust the output image dimensions.

Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing smoothen paint edges using a 5x multisampling method.

Frames: Start, End

Defines surface processing start and end frame.

Sub-steps

Sub-steps are extra samples between frames, usually required when there is a very fast brush.

Advanced Panel

Canvas advanced panel.

From “Advanced” panel you can adjust surface type and related settings.

Surface Type

Each surface has a “type” that defines what surface is used for.

Paint

Paint Surface.

Paint is the basic surface type that outputs color and wetness values. In case of vertex surfaces results are outputted as vertex colors.

Wetmap is a black-and-white output that visualizes paint wetness. White being maximum wetness, black being completely dry. It is usually used as mask for rendering. Some “paint effects” affect wet paint only.

Dry

Completely disable drying is useful for indefinitely spreading paint.

Color Dry

It can be used to define wetness level when paint colors start to shift to surface “background”. Lower values can be useful to prevent spreading paint from becoming transparent as it dries, while higher values give better results in general.

Displace

Displace Surface.

This type of surface outputs intersection depth from brush objects.

Tip

If the displace output seems too rough it usually helps to add a Smooth Modifier after Dynamic Paint in the modifier stack.

Waves

Waves Surface.

This surface type produces simulated wave motion. Like displace, wave surface also uses brush intersection depth to define brush strength.

You can use following settings to adjust the motion:

Open Borders

Allows waves to pass through mesh “edges” instead of reflecting from them.

Timescale

Directly adjusts simulation speed without affecting simulation outcome. Lower values make simulation go slower and otherwise.

Speed

Affects how fast waves travel on the surface. This setting is also corresponds to the size of the simulation. Half the speed equals surface double as large.

Damping

Reduces the wave strength over time. Basically adjusts how fast wave disappears.

Spring

Adjusts the force that pulls water back to “zero level”.

Tip

In some cases the wave motion gets very unstable around brush. It usually helps to reduce wave speed, brush “wave factor” or even the resolution of mesh/surface.

Weight

Weight Surface.

This is a special surface type only available for vertex format. It outputs vertex weight groups that can be used by other Blender modifiers and tools.

Tip

It is usually preferred to use “proximity” based brushes for weight surfaces to allow smooth falloff between weight values.

Common Options

For each surface type there are special settings to adjust. Most types have the settings Dissolve and Brush :

Dissolve

Used to make the surface smoothly return to its original state during a defined time period.

Brush Group

Used to define a specific object group to pick brush objects from.

Influence Scale, Radius Scale

For tweaking brush settings individually for each surface.

Output Panel

Canvas output panel.

From Output panel you can adjust how surface outputs its results.

Vertex

For Vertex format surfaces, you can select a mesh data layer (color / weight depending on surface type) to generate results to. You can use the “+”/”-” icons to add/remove a data layers of given name. If layer with given name is not found, it is shown as red.

Image Sequence

For Image Sequence surfaces, you can define used UV Maps and output file saving directory, filenames and image format.

Initial Color Panel

ToDo.

Effects Panel

Canvas effects panel.

This is a special feature for “Paint” type surface. It generates animated movement on canvas surface.

Effects

Spread

Paint slowly spreads to surrounding points eventually filling all connected areas.

Drip

Paint moves in specific direction specified by Blender force fields, gravity and velocity with user defined influences.

Shrink

Painted area slowly shrinks until disappears completely.

For spread and drip effects, only “wet paint” is affected, so as the paint dries, movement becomes slower until it stops.

Cache Panel

Canvas cache panel.

This panel is currently only visible for Vertex format surfaces. You can use it to adjust and bake point cache.