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 hair particles

Creating the bristles on a paintbrush may seem complex and hard to do, but when we use a hair particle system, we can easily add thousands of bristles to create that look. We can also add physics to the hairs so that they bend and deform as they collide with the plane, giving the look of a real paintbrush. Let’s jump straight into it:

  1. First, select Particle Object located at the bottom of the brush. This is the object that we will use to emit the hair particles.
Figure 13.8 – Particle Object

Figure 13.8 – Particle Object

  1. Head over to the Particle System panel, create a new one by hitting the + button, then switch the type to Hair.
Figure 13.9 – Hair particle system

Figure 13.9 – Hair particle system

  1. Let’s tweak a couple of these settings to get a better result. First, set Number of hair particles to 2000. This will give us double the number of particles. Then, to make the hair shorter, set Hair Length to 0...