Squishy Volumes

July 13, 2026 · View on GitHub

The Material Point Method (MPM) in Blender!

Here you can download ready-to-use releases, report bugs, and get the source code.

Works in Blender 5.0 and 5.1. (5.2 support coming soon)

Where to Get the Extension

You can either

How to Use the Extension

Install in Blender

Either drag & drop the extension ZIP file directly into Blender and enable it via the pop-up dialog.

Or from within Blender, click through these:

Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Top right arrow down (drop-down) -> Install from Disk -> select ZIP.

Create Your First Simulation

TODO: Textual User Guide

TODO: Link Tutorial Video

All the Features

TODO: Link to Book

TODO: Link Video Series

Licensing

The Blender-specific Python extension code is licensed under GPLv3, while the Rust simulation code is licensed under MIT. To avoid confusion, a respective license header is included in each source file.

Third-party licenses can be found in the binary artifacts (Python wheels) included in the extension ZIP files.

Building

Warning

Building is only documented to a certain extend. Ubuntu 24.04 is tested rigorously, and builds on other operating systems are automated in GitHub's workflows. The extension is not meant to be built by the average user.

That being said, you should be fine if you have experience with the involved tools and languages. We would love to hear from you about any issues you might have. We are continually seeking ways to enhance the build system.

Dev Requirements

Clone the repository

git clone git@github.com:Algebraic-UG/squishy_volumes.git
cd squishy_volumes

Important

All subsequent steps assume the checkout directory as working directory.

(Optional) Setup Python

This isn't technically needed for actual wheel building below since the uvx command takes care of the environment. But it is needed for the ./rust level cargo build command to succeed.

uv python install 3.11
uv python list 3.11

Copy the path and set the environment variable for PyO3.

For example:

export PYO3_PYTHON=/home/<user>/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.11.11-linux-x86_64-gnu/bin/python3.11

Wrap

See also rebuild_api.sh.

Remove stale wheels

rm python/src/squishy_volumes_extension/wheels/*

Build new wheel, omit --no-default-features for hot reloading.

cd rust/crates/wrap
uvx --python 3.11 maturin build --no-default-features --release --out ../../../python/src/squishy_volumes_extension/wheels/

Update manifest to include new wheel.

cd -
uv run --with toml scripts/update_manifest.py

Extension

This command produces a ready-to-install ZIP file.

cd python/src/squishy_volumes_extension
blender --command extension build

You can then install it like before.

Hot Reload

TODO: describe how to hot reload while developing

Tip

It's very similar to https://github.com/Algebraic-UG/blend_rust.

Using VSCode for Python

See this helpful video.

  1. Install VS Code.
  2. Install Python, Python Debugger, and Blender Development.
  3. Open the repo dir.
  4. ctrl+shift+P -> Python: Create Environment -> Venv -> Enter interpreter path... -> Select Python that is bundled with Blender.
  5. In the venv: python -m pip install fake-bpy-module-latest.
  6. Restart VS Code.
  7. ctrl+shift+P -> Blender: Build and Start -> Select Blender binary.

Automatic Tests

The step tests is currently broken. See https://github.com/Algebraic-UG/squishy_volumes/issues/190

cd rust
cargo test --release