Nodes - Particle Meshes
- thomas (Unlicensed)
In RealFlow, a mesh is a three dimensional representation of the outmost particles of one or more emitters. The mesh engine puts a sort of skin over these particles to visualize the fluid’s volume. This polygon mesh can then be treated like any other object inside your 3D application. You can apply shaders and textures, even with UV coordinates, combine it with motion blurred particles, and render everything to create a convincing fluid.
The number of particles is is the most relevant criteria for the quality of a fluid and also for the final mesh. Particle mesh creation is subdivided into two main areas:
- Mesh settings. These are the parameters for the polygon hull, e.g. “Polygon size”, filtering and so on. All these settings directly affect the mesh’s polygons.
- Field settings. With these parameters it is possible to control the influence between the particles and they are directly related to the used emitters, not to the mesh container.
Under → "Quick Start Tutorials - Particle-Based Meshing" you will find a global workflow for this mesh type.
Build Mesh and Build Mesh Sequence
The first method is to build a single mesh. In most cases, this feature is used to create a test mesh from a single frame. It is your starting point for adjusting the mesh's individual parameters. In many cases you will do this for several frames until you have found working settings. Click on this button from the "Mesh" shelf:
The → interactive meshing mode is a quick way to refine your test meshes:
In the next step, the entire simulation range is meshed. To do this, rewind to the frame from which the meshing process should start, and press the “Build Mesh Sequence” button from the “Mesh” shelf. RealFlow will now go through the frames and create the meshes one by one (the appearing warning message can be ignored):
