Layers - Right-Click Menu Management

The management submenu can be called up with a right-click on a layer's name and shows the same entries as the “Layers” window's own “Icon Bar”, except for “Move selected layer up/down” and the two functions described below. Please take a look at this page for detailed explanations of the remaining entries of the right-click menus.

Entries without Submenus

Show/Edit layer members

This function opens the well-known node picker. It contains the entire list of items from the "Nodes" panel and highlights the members of the layer. You can multi-select or deselect nodes and click on "OK" to add them to the current layer. If these nodes have different attributes, for example different visibility states, then “Visible” will be changed to “Multiple”. Under “Simulation” the principle is exactly the same: when the layer members have different “Export Data” or “Simulation status” settings, you will see “Multiple”.

Select layer members

If you want to select the members of a layer in the "Nodes" window, you do not have to do it manually - simply click on this icon.

Add selected nodes to selected layers

You can, of course, also make a custom selection of items inside the "Nodes" window. When you click on this icon, the highlighted nodes will be added to the currently activated layer.

Add new layer

Here you can create a new empty layer. Names will be assigned automatically, such as “VisibilityLayer0X” and “SimulationLayer0X”. “X” is a consecutive number.

Add new layer with selected nodes

In the nodes window you can make a selection and add them to a newly created layer. The nodes do not have to be of the same type or group. You can combine emitters with objects, daemons with grid fluid elements,RealWave nodes with IDOCs and so on. It is also possible to select and drag the nodes from the “Nodes” panel to the layer window to create a new group from your selection. Another feature is to drag layers inside the layer panel onto an empty area of the canvas. This action will create new layer that contains all the nodes in the selection.

Remove selected layers

The currently selected layers will be removed from the list.

Duplicate as Simulation Layer

This entry can only be seen in the “Visibility” panel and it is a very convenient option to clone the layer with all its members and turn it into a “Simulation” layer.

Duplicate as Visibility Layer

The previous explanation (“Duplicate as Simulation Layer”) describes the functionality of this menu entry, but turns a copy of a “Simulation” layer into a “Visibility” layer.

"Set selected..." Submenu

Set selected Active

This and the following two icons influence the node selection's "Simulation" parameter in the "Node Params" "Node" panel. This is the first button and activates the node selection.

Set selected Cache

This button sets the node selection to "Cache" mode. When a node is in cache mode, RealFlow reads the previously simulated and stored data from disk and displays them in the viewport. The distinctive feature is that cached elements can still influence fluid, objects and RealWave nodes which are not cached, but they cannot be influenced themselves. Cached elements are very often used with RealFlow's grid fluid technology (“Hybrido”), because there the common workflow is subdivided into passes and each new simulation requires the cached data from the previous calculation cycle.

Set selected Inactive

This button sets the node selection to "Inactive". From this moment, the node no longer contributes to the simulation.

Export data of selected

Each RealFlow node has its own data file formats and export resources. These attributes can be easily controlled under “Export Central”, but with hundreds of nodes this can be a very time-consuming task. There are different solutions to manage these resources is scripting; the other is RealFlow's layer system. You can activate the default resources of a layer's members with a single click. This feature also supports multi-layer selections so you can manage even more resources on the fly. The last option is to select the desired nodes from the “Nodes” window, viewport or “Relationship Editor” and activate all resources with this button/icon.

Do not export data of selected

This function works exactly like “Export data of selected”, but is used to deactivate all export resources of the current node selection.