RW Meshes

Owned by Systems Next Limit (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 21 Mar, 2022 by Next Limit
2 min read

The RWMeshes extension allows you to import a RealWave from a .SD file generated with RealFlow™, and load the mesh at render time. This way, the mesh doesn't need to be included in the scene file (as it is a reference to the .SD file and it's loaded in render time) producing smaller scene files, and reducing the export and transfer times. 

Ocean simulated with RealWave and rendered in Maxwell Render using the RWMeshes extension 


It is applied as an extension object (i.e. in Studio, you can load it with Object>Create Extension Object>RWMeshes. In the supported plugins, its location depends on each 3D platforms interface). 

Parameters

RWMeshes panel in Studio


  • RWMesh File: Path to the .SD RealWave file 
  • Frame #: Number of the frame on the .SD sequence to be loaded. 



Animation 

For animated waves, the .SD sequence must be loaded into your 3D platform using the RealFlow plugin for that platform. 



Displacement 

There is an specific displacement mode that allows you to render displacement maps obtained with RealFlow to displace fluids meshes and Realwave open sea surfaces. To be correctly rendered in Maxwell, the map must be exported from RealFlow in fixed Range mode. The final scale in Maxwell will depend on the scale of your fluid mesh. You have to use the Scale factor to lower/raise the amount of displacement in relation to the final object size. In the example below, the Scale factor was lowered to 0.0015 for all axis to properly fit a 25x25 m ocean simulated with Realwave. 




Displacement map from a RealWave simulation and the resulting render after applying it to a plane object


For more information about applying displacement maps, please check the Displacement page in the Materials section.