The settings of the “Preview Object” are used to visualize the particles' attributes. Different colours can be used to mimic a certain behaviour or fluid type, e.g. fire or dust. The mode of operation is very similar to the “Display” panels of RealFlow's → SPH emitters and → Hybrido domains. In 3DS there is a dedicated object, available for all procedural tools (meshes, particles, cloud). This "Preview Object" is not just to visualize the particles/mesh, but also a base object for the geometry shaders.
Gizmo Scale
If you want to change the size of the gizmo's viewport icon, please enter a new value here. "Gizmo Scale" works as a factor.
Show Point Cloud
When you activate this feature then the particle cloud will be displayed in the viewport.
LOD%
This parameter works on a percentage basis: if a file contains 100,000 particles, for example, then a "Particles LOD" value of 50 will display around 50,000 particles. Please note that this reduction only affects the quality in the viewport, not the final mesh when you start to render a scene.
Mesh LOD%
The mode of operation is exactly the same as described above, but here the mesh is affected.
Show Channel
It is also possible to visualize the channels. The desired channel can be selected here.
Min/Max
These read-only fields inform you about the current minimum and maximum values of the active channel.
Automatic Range
“Yes” is the standard setting to create the colour gradient between “Min Value” and “Max Value”. The appropriate colours are shown in the “Min and Max range colour" fields.
Min Value/Max Value
Allows you to manually adjust the minimum and maximum value for the selected property. Values below or above “Min and Max range” will be visually clipped and represented with the appropriate colours next to the two fields . When a fluid’s attribute has only mean differences you will hardly see a colour range. With ranges you should aim for better visual differentiation.
Viewport Mesh Preview
As mentioned in the introduction, this gizmo can also be used in conjunction with the → “RealFlow Particle Mesh” plugin to create a mesh preview. If you do want to show the mesh in the viewport, please change this option to “On”.
Update Mesh
When the “Preview Object” is used in conjunction with the “RealFlow RenderKit Mesh” tool you can update the mesh's preview with a click on this button.