RealFlow Mesh Importer (MI)

A RealFlow mesh is a polygonal representation of a particle cloud's surface. During the meshing process, the engine constantly evaluates the particles' attributes, also called channels. The channels' values are written to the mesh's vertices, and finally interpolated to create a smooth distribution over the entire surface. This way, it is possible to store velocity or age information with the mesh. In Cinema 4D, this information can be used by the “RealFlow Mesh Importer” plugin to create vertex maps. The vertex maps, on the other hand, are connected with a shader to control colour, transparency, or other properties. This way it is possible to use the mesh's channel information for rendering the fluid, and create very realistic effects.

The number of channels is different for standard particle fluids, Hybrido simulations, and secondary elements (splashes, foam, and bubbles). The standard particle fluids (known as SPH fluids) offers a long list of channels, e.g. velocity, number of neighbours, pressure, density, temperature, vorticity, viscosity etc. Hybrido's RPC particle files work with a reduced set of channels.

In RealFlow you can choose which channels you want to save with the mesh. All relevant channels have to be activated before the meshing process starts. The same applies to the mesh's export resources.

Supported File Formats

The plugin supports two file formats: BIN and MD. Although the first format appears to be the same as for particles, there are fundamental differences and they are not interchangeable. BIN is RealFlow's standard format for meshes and active by default. The problem with BIN files is that they only store a limited number of channels. If you only want to use the velocity channel you do not have to change anything. In cases where attributes like vorticity or age are required, we recommend using the MD format. Both formats can be found and configured in RealFlow's “Export Central” dialogue. When you take a look at the MD branch you will see that this format also provides checkboxes to choose which channels should be included with the mesh.

Meshes can also be created from RealWave surfaces with the “Particle layer” option activated.

The Alembic Format

 This file type is a special case, because it can be seen as a universal file format, supported by almost any 3D platform. Alembic is open source and freely available. When you use Alembic files for exchanging data between RealFlow and Cinema 4D you have to consider scene scale. For a more detailed description about how to work with ABC files, please take a look at this page. The Alembic file is not supported by the connectivity plugins.