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

Creating the simulation

Before we get started, make sure to download the Rigid Body Course Setup.blend file. This will include a basic scene, with some models and materials already in place and HDR for lighting. Each object is named accordingly, so it’s easy to navigate.

Once you are familiar with the scene, we can go ahead and start creating the simulation. If you would like to download the finished scene, Rigid Body Project File.blend, for reference, you can do that as well!

Working with Complex Rigid Bodies

When working with complex rigid body simulations, Blender tends to crash and be unresponsive. Remember to constantly save your Blender file throughout this tutorial so that you don’t lose progress if and when the program crashes.

Creating the wrecking ball

Let’s get started by simulating the wrecking ball crashing into one of the blue cubes! To do this, we’ll use the rigid body Object menu to add physics to all the chains at once:

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