Book Image

Learn Blender Simulations the Right Way

By : Stephen Pearson
2 (2)
Book Image

Learn Blender Simulations the Right Way

2 (2)
By: Stephen Pearson

Overview of this book

Blender is a free, open source 3D software that allows you to create stunning visual graphics, animation, VFX, and much more! This book is an in-depth guide to creating realistic and eye-catching simulations, understanding the various settings and options around their creation, and learning how to troubleshoot solutions to your own Blender problems. In addition, this book can also be used to simulate the behavior of certain physics effects, such as fire, fluid, soft bodies, and rigid bodies. You’ll learn how to use Mantaflow, an open source framework within Blender software, to create fire, smoke, and fluid simulations. As you progress, you’ll understand how to easily produce satisfying rigid and soft body simulations, along with cloth simulations. Finally, you’ll use Dynamic Paint, Blender’s modifier, and the physics system to create eye-catching animations. By the end of this Blender book, you’ll have created a number of animations on your own, such as a campfire, waterfalls, and explosions. You’ll also have gained a deeper understanding of all the simulation options in Blender, which you can use to create portfolio-ready animations.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Using Mantaflow for Fire, Smoke, and Fluids
7
Part 2: Simulating Physics with Soft Bodies and Cloth
12
Part 3: Diving into Rigid Bodies
15
Part 4: Understanding Dynamic Paint in Blender

Understanding cloth simulation settings and values

Now that we understand what a cloth simulation is all about and how collision objects work, it’s time to jump into all the settings and values. You can see an overview of the Cloth settings here:

Figure 8.7 – Cloth settings

Figure 8.7 – Cloth settings

We are going to start out at the very top and work our way down, as follows:

  • If you click on the three dots and lines above Quality Steps, you will see a list of presets to choose from, as shown in the following screenshot:
Figure 8.8 – Presets

Figure 8.8 – Presets

This is a quick and easy way to create different types of cloth. You can also create your own presets by giving them a name and hitting the + button.

  • The Quality Steps option controls how many simulation steps per frame Blender will calculate. The higher the value, the more accurate the simulation will be, but in turn, this will take longer to bake. If cloth or collision objects...