RS - Input/Output Settings

The “Input/Output Settings” are closely connected to RealFlow's → “Export Central” dialogue, and this is the place where you specify which simulation nodes you want to save, and where. “Retime Simulation” reads these files (the so-called cache files) and uses the contained information. As a simple rule we can say:”No cache files, no retiming!”. These are the layout elements:

Please note that it is currently not possible to retime Alembic files.

Filter (A)

The “Filter” field allows you to work with wildcards to display only certain nodes. RealFlow's wildcard filter is not case sensitive – you can use small case and capitals for your search. An example:

If you want to display only node names starting with “Sphere”, you can enter “Sphere*”.
If the name only includes “sphere” at unspecific positions, then you can search for “*sphere*.
The "?" wildcard is used to replace only a single character.
With this symbol it is possible to substitute a single character when you want to search for all nodes with a common prefix, e.g. “Cube1?”
This operation will display “Cube10”, “Cube11” and so on, but not “Cube20”, “Cube100” etc.

Export Tree (B)

This is a list with the scene's simulation nodes and its available export formats. By default, “Retime Simulation” will consider all nodes, but it is possible to exclude certain elements:

Exclude or include a scene node by disabling/enabling its checkbox.
For included nodes please make sure that at least one export resource is active, e.g. “Particle cache (.bin)” for SPH-PBF emitters, or “Particles cache (.rpc)” for Hybrido fluids.
In some cases you also get warnings, for example when a resource does not exist.
To learn more about RealFlow's file formats please visit → "File Formats (A-M)" and → "File Formats (N-Z)".

In scenes with objects you have to be careful, because there are two fundamental ways to save the information:

The entire information for all objects is saved in a single file, called “animation.sd” (please also see → "Quick Start Workflows - Export Management" under "Node-Specific Export".).
The information is saved individually for each object in separate files. These files wear the object's name plus an extension, e.g. Cube01.sd or Torus02.abc
Both methods can coexist.
As long as the global “animation.sd” file exists – which is the case by default – you do not have to worry, and you can create object-specific retimed files as well by enabling the appropriate resource here in the “Input/Output Settings”.

Output Preferences (C)

In the tab's lower section there are options for customizing the output files:

Alternative location

Lets you specify a folder outside the project's home directory.

Subfolder

This field is used to create a folder (here: retimed) under the export resource's directory, e.g. particles/retimed or objects/retimed.

File prefix

A text string that is added to the file name's beginning.

File suffix

A text string that is added to the file name's ending.