Retime Simulation (RS)

This tool has been developed to change the chronology of a simulation in a non-destructive post-process. “Retime Simulation” gives you the possibility of creating stunning time-lapse or slow-motion effects with seamless transitions from any available source: grid and particle fluids, rigid and soft bodies and RealWave surfaces. Even secondary elements like splashes or foam are considered. All retimed simulations are written to new files to keep and protect the original simulation.

The "Retime Simulation" window is located under RealFlow's “Tools” menu and when you open it you will see two sections – “Retiming Parameters” and “Input/Output Settings”. The parameter panel can be seen as a control centre for adjusting the retiming process, and the “Input/Output Settings” show you which nodes can be retimed. Like any other of RealFlow's GUI components the "Retime Simulation" window has tooltips that will be displayed when you move the mouse to the appropriate button or element.

RealFlow's “Binary Loader” also has a built-in (slightly modified) version of the “Retime Simulation” tool.

The "Retime Simulation" tool icon.

The Retiming Process

Once the retiming process has been started, a dialogue will be opened with information about the current progress. The first progress bar shows the status of the entire retiming process, the other bars display the progress for each node individually. The retiming process can be cancelled with the ESC key.

The "Retime Simulation" tool also writes out an XML file which points to the retimed files. So, all new files and sequences can be recreated from scratch with a single file import. Additionally, there are C++ and Python commands to trigger the process. Please take a look at RealFlow's SDK (part of the installation) for C++ and RealFlow's internal help system to browse through the Python reference.