Prefs - Display

Owned by thomas (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 03 Jun, 2014
3 min read

Miscellanea

Grid size

When you start RealFlow you can see a square consisting of 100 x 100 subsidiary squares. The number of these squares can be adjusted with this setting. The viewport grid is very important in terms of estimating relations and gives you a very good impression about the real dimension of your objects and scene elements.

Square size

By default one square equals exactly 1.00 x 1.00 meter. By choosing higher values, the grid becomes bigger, while values smaller than 1 lead to downsizing. This parameter defines the side length of each subsidiary square.

Bolder lines at

With this option you can introduce a subgrid and, by default, there are stronger lines around each 5 units. To change this raster, simply enter a new value to increase or decrease step size.

Grid Blending

This feature is used to dim the raster. With “On” the grid is clearly visible with strong lines. When you choose “Off”, the grid appears slightly darker with finer lines.

Scene lighting

Here you can tell RealFlow how many light sources are used for shading. This is only important for flat shading and smooth shading. Two lights need more CPU time and can slow down simulation or update time for displaying all elements, but are more appealing.

Object back face culling

In various cases it is required to select an object’s faces and with this option enabled only the polygons, visible to the user, can be selected. Hidden faces will not be considered. This option also works with vertex selections.

Variable particle size on display

Particles closer to the camera are shown as bigger then those far away to achieve a perspective effect.

Display only at frames

Normally, the viewport is updated each frame while simulating a scene. If it this option is turned off this happens within each simulation cycle: a simulation cycle is the range between the first and last frame that is displayed in the timeline. This option can substantially reduce simulation time.

Use Vertex Buffer Objects

A “Vertex Buffer Object” (VBO) is an OpenGL feature to speed a render process. The data is uploaded to the graphic card's memory, not the system memory, and can be directly rendered by the video device. The result is a significant performance gain.

Use Shaders

When this option is activated, RealFlow uses the graphics card to perform colour calculations for displaying Hybrido particles and secondary elements. If you experience problems (e.g. black particles) please disable this feature. Then, RealFlow uses OpenCL's standard functions to display the fluid in the viewport.

View colors

Background color 1 / Background color 2

These colours are used to create gradient in the viewport, similar to a horizon or sky. You can choose any available colour by defining the appropriate RGB values.

Grid colour 1 / Grid color 2 / Grid color 3

With the given three colours it is possible to define different colours for the grid lines in order to make them distinguishable. As with “Background colour”, any RGB combination is allowed:

  • “Grid color 1” represents the origin axis, going through 0,0

  • “Grid color 2” is used to dye all axis in steps of 5 units.

  • “Grid color 3” colours all axis in steps of 1 unit

UI color scheme

Light / Dark

You can choose between a “Light” and a “Dark” interface. Just select the one you like better.

Display info

None

If you do not want to show any information about the scene's nodes, it is possible to deactivate the screen captions. 

All nodes

This is the standard setting and all nodes, available in the scene, will be displayed with appropriate information in the left part of the active viewport.

Selected nodes

When this option is active, you will only see information about the currently selected nodes.