Bubbles & Foam - Foam Texture

Each foam particle can contribute a texture and leaves a white mark on a black canvas. You have several parameters to control dissipation and diffusion effects to make the particle marks vanish over time.

Calculate texture

This mode allows you to store a grayscale texture map for each simulated frame. You have to activate the image export manually under

 Export > Foam texture (*)

You can choose between five different image formats: BMP, JPG, PNG, TGA and TIF. If the selected format is capable of 16-bit (e.g. TIF) the texture will be saved as 16-bit grayscale, otherwise the 8-bit mode is used.

Source

You can choose whether you want to calculate the foam textures from foam or splash particles. In the latter case the particle marks' strength can be controlled with the → “Splash” emitter's “Foam strength” parameter.

Resolution

Here the size of the foam map is adjusted. Please note that RealFlow maps are always squared, e.g. 512 x 512 pixel.

Diffusion

Real foam shows areas of high and low concentration. “Diffusion” simulates how foam flows in and out between these areas.

Dissipation

Under real conditions foam disappears depending on the surrounding conditions, like weather or wave height. Higher values will make the foam marks last longer.

Uvw mapping

When “Calculate texture” has been set to “Yes” you have three options for creating the maps:

• “UV particle” can read the particles' UV coordinates and transfer them into a texture map.
• “Top projection” the texture coordinates are taken from a simple plain top projection.
• "Top projection (Average velocity)" means that the texture coordinates are taken from a top projection, but the projection plane is moving with the fluid's average velocity.

Create texture from image...

Here you can load a bitmap that will be projected horizontally on the fluid surface. From RGB images only the red channel is used. The pixel values represent the foam’s density.