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 rain particles

To create this particle system, let’s first add an emitter object to emit the particles into the scene:

  1. Press Shift + A and add another plane object. Let’s scale it to be the same size as the smaller plane and then move it up about 4 meters above the water.
  2. To create the particle system, head over to the Particle System panel and click + to create a new one.
  3. Now, let’s decide how much rain we want there to be. Do you want it to be pouring down or just a light sprinkle? Let’s go with something in the middle and create light rain. To do this, set the number of particles to 3000.
  4. For Frame Start, set it to -50 so that it looks like it’s already raining when we play the animation. For Lifetime, set it to 35 so that the particles disappear after they go beneath the water.
Figure 14.9 – Emission settings

Figure 14.9 – Emission settings

  1. In the Velocity tab, set Normal to 0 and Object Aligned Z...