SPH - Bitmap

“Bitmap” gives you the opportunity to either load a single image or an entire image sequence used as an emission mask. You can choose any black and white TGA, BMP or JPG picture. Please note that RealFlow does not take any grey shades into consideration to adjust the emission rate. Even pictures with 256 or more shades of grey are treated as black and white images. This means that there are only two possibilities: either full emission or no particle creation at all, while the particles will be emitted from the non-black parts of the image. Please make sure that the file formats are supported by RealFlow and share a common extension.

Emission mask

Open RealFlow’s file picker to choose a single image or a sequence from a folder and attach it to the emitter. If you want to use an image sequence, all the other images must be stored in the same folder and contain a five-digit file padding.

File list

This parameter contains four entires. The default option is “Single”, which should be used if there is just one image you want to make emit particles. “Sequence-end” loads a series of images and the emission will stop with the last file. “Sequence-keep” stops with the last image, but this final bitmap will continue generating particles. “Sequence-loop” simply creates an endless loop and once the end is reached, RealFlow starts again with the first image.

Number of files

The length of an image sequence can be adjusted here by specifying the last frame’s number.

Affect

The standard setting is none, the second option is “Viscosity”. This means that you can actively affect the fluid’s viscosity from the attached bitmap’s black/white distribution.

Val min/max

With Affect > Viscosity turned on you can specify a minimum viscosity value, represented by the black pixels and a maximum value, represented by white pixels.

Volume

As usual this parameter creates a volume filled with particles. The outlines of the white (and grey) areas of the bitmap represent the volume’s borders, while the entered value determines its height.

Speed

This value defines the speed of the particles at the time of creation and is only available when “Volume” is set to 0.0. "Speed" is measured in metres per second [m/s].

V/H random

You can add some random displacement in vertical/horizontal directions to avoid a regular pattern.