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Add > Mesh
RealFlow nodes can be moved, scaled, and rotated with the W, R, and E keys.
Viewport perspective is changed with the 1, 2, 3, and 4 keys.
Shading modes are toggled with the 7, 8, 9, and 0 keys.
Foam with SPH Fluids – Overview
This scene contains two emitters, but only the “Square01” node will be meshed, while the fluid from “Container01” should be rendered as particles. Choose a frame with lots of details, and follow these instructions:
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If “Radius” is too small then the spheres might not interpenetrate and you will see a torn fluid with holes. If it is too big the fluid's borders become thick and you will lose detail.
Foam with SPH Fluids – Settings
A very good and reliable way to start with RealFlow's “Particle mesh” is to use very similar settings for “Polygon size” and “Radius”:
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“Steps” tells the engine how often the relaxation filter will be applied. With higher settings the borders become sharper. With settings greater than 100 you can often observe the look of liquid metal which completely destroys the impression of a watery or milky fluid. Always start with moderate values between 8 and 32.
Foam with SPH Fluids - Channels
Channels are essential for realistic rendering and they help you to visualize changes in speed, age, or density – to name but a few. With a velocity channel, for example, it is possible to create the whitening effect of a rapidly moving fluid. RealFlow's “Particle mesh” engine provides a wide variety of attributes to save with the mesh:
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Export > Export Central
Open the “PARTICLE MESHES” branch. There you will find several file formats to choose from.
BIN is the standard format and supports only a few basic channels.
ABC (Alembic) can store the entire range of channels.
MD provides the most sophisticated method, because here you can also decide which channels you want to include. Of course the channels have to be activated under “Particle Channels” before – otherwise they remain empty.
Enable “Mesh sequence (.md)” and leave “Mesh cache (.bin)” activated, because it is required by RealFlow.
Uncheck the unused channels, but leave “normal” and “texture” active in any case.
Click on “Done”.
Foam with SPH – Build Mesh Sequence
Now, the mesh sequence can be created:
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This action can be stopped with the Esc key, but it might take a short while until the process is interrupted, because the current mesh will be finished first. All files will be written to the project's “mesh” folder.
Shattered Glass – Workflow
The steps for preparing the mesh node and its settings are almost the same as described before. Only the final parameters are slightly different. This time you will also be using RealFlow's “Interactive Meshing” feature:
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