RealFlow provides different channels to visualize specific properties of a fluid. These channels can be visualized in many different ways and dyed: different colours will mimic a certain behaviour or fluid type, e.g. fire or dust.
Visible
Toggle the domain's (= fluid's) visibility with this checkbox.
Show icon
Toggle the domain's viewport icon visibility here.
Display type
These are your options:
- “Point” draws the particles as coloured dots.
- “Sphere” gives you an impression of what the meshed fluid cloud will look like. Please bear in mind that it takes some time to draw the shaded spheres – especially with large amounts of particles.
- “Arrow” displays the particles as arrows indicating a particle’s velocity and motion direction.
The size of both the points and spheres is adjusted with the “Size” parameter.
Size
Each particle is represented by a point or a sphere and here you can adjust the size. If the particles are shown as arrows, “Size” controls their lengths – values around 0.01 give good results. Under “Display type” you can choose the preferred viewport representation.
Particle %
Limit the number of particles in the viewport: with 100% all particles are displayed, with 25% only one quarter etc.
Property
The following channels can be colour coded and visualized. The range of values for each property will be colour-coded with “Min range” and “Max range”:
- “Velocity” shows the speed vector's magnitude.
- “Velocity.xyz” shows the speed vector's individual X, Y, and Z components.
Automatic range
By default, the minimum and maximum values are calculated by RealFlow automatically and displayed under “Min | Max range”. The colour gradient is adjusted to this range.
With “No” you will be able to define your own range, e.g. for enhancing colour contrast. Particles with values smaller than “Min range” or greater than “Max range” will be displayed with the same gradient colours.
Min range
Here you can see the smallest value of the displayed “Property”. If “Automatic range” is unchecked you can define a custom value. All particles with values smaller than “Min range” will be displayed with the same colour.
Max range
Here you can see the greatest value of the displayed “Property”. If “Automatic range” is unchecked you can define a custom value. All particles with values greater than “Max range” will be displayed with the same colour.
Particle range color
You can define a custom gradient for the representation of the “Min | Max range” values. It is possible to customize the gradient, add additional colours, shift the colours' weights and distribution, and work with RGBA or HSV values: click on “+” for more options.
Please also take a look at → “Basic Workflows – Colour Gradients” to learn how to work with this tool.