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

Making the materials

For this next section, we will be creating all the materials for our scene! Starting out with the flag, we will be learning how to UV unwrap an object and assign a texture to it. After that, we will also create the materials for both the flagpole and the hooks! Let’s get started!

Creating the flag material

Follow these steps to create the flag material:

  1. The first thing we need to do is decide what texture we will be using for our flag. You could use your country’s flag or the Blender flag that I have created for this chapter. Here is the link to download that texture: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Learn-Blender-Simulations-the-Right-Way/tree/main/Chapter09.
  2. Once you have a texture ready to go, add it to the material. To do so, head over to the Material panel and create a new one.
  3. Next, click on that yellow dot next to the base color of the Principled BSDF shader, choose Image Texture, and open the flag texture you have downloaded...