Imagine a scene, where you have to simulate 100 frames to wait until the fluid particles have settled. These 100 frames will not be used in the final render and will be deleted. What you can do is to create an initial state from the last frame. When "Use Initial State" is enabled this saved state will be shown at frame 0 and be used as a starting point for the next simulation cycle. Now you have exactly the frames you really need, because the previous frames will be overwritten at cache time.
Other, typical fields of applications are, for example
- The creation of puddles in conjunction with the "Crown" daemon
- "Spline" emitters and "DSpline" daemons
- Calm fluid surfaces
- Filled tanks and containers
Creating an initial state is a matter of a few clicks. The associated initial state file will be written to the scene's catch folder specified under Scene > Cache.
- Simulate (click on the timeline's "Play" button)
- Stop the simulation at any time and press "Create Initial State.
- Set “Use Initial State” to “Yes” if necessary.
- Rewind the timeline to frame 0; the initial state is shown.
- Simulate.