Meshing

Meshing turns a particle cloud into a solid polygon object with UVs and vertex maps:

• The mesh engine supports RealFlow | Cinema 4D fluids and Thinking Particles. Both particle types can be meshed together.
• It is possible to combine several fluid containers within a single mesher object.
• Vertex maps are used to visualize the fluid's velocities in different areas.
• The higher the number of particles, the better the final mesh.

Basic Workflow

You normally start with the particle simulation and cache it. Once you are satisfied with the result you proceed with the mesh:

RealFlow | Cinema 4D's meshing parameters.
With "Build mesh" it is possible to create a single mesh from the current frame.

It takes a little experience and routine to become familiar with the different parameters, but the fundamental steps are always the same:

• Attach the fluid container(s) or Thinking Particle group(s) to the meshes node's "Links" or "TP Group" fields.
• "Resolution" provides five levels of detail. "Medium" and "Medium-High" offer a good balance between meshing speed and the final number of polygons.
• In order to create mesh the engine creates spheres around the particles and blends them. The size of these spheres is defined through "Radius". The value depends on the number of particles.
• "Smooth" removes unwanted structures from the mesh and blends the polygons. Values between 3 and 8 give satisfying results in most cases.
• If the mesh appears "blobby" and thick increase "Thinning". This will shrink the mesh and fits it to the underlying particle cloud.
• "Relax" and "Relax Iterations" sharpen the mesh's borders. Try to avoid very sharp borders, because they look unnatural.
• "Auto Mesh Normals" helps to get a smoother impression of the mesh in the render, but Cinema 4D's "Phong" tag will no longer affect the mesh.

Test Meshes and Caching

You normally create several test meshes with different parameter combinations before the entire simulation range is being meshed:

• "Build mesh" creates a single mesh from the current settings. The result is not saved.
• With "Auto Build" RealFlow | Cinema 4D creates a new mesh automatically each time you change a parameter.

If you want to mesh the entire simulation the particle part has to be cached first. Then go to Scene > Cache and press "Cache Meshes". RealFlow | Cinema 4D will read the particle files and create the meshes under the "Cache Folder".