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

Adding inflow and effectors

The domain is now completely set up and ready to go! Next, we need to add an Inflow object to emit fluid into the simulation. We also need to set up all the rocks and ground to have collision effectors, or the fluid will just fall right through it.

Let’s start out with the Inflow object, as follows:

  1. First, add a plane object and place it on the top of the waterfall.
  2. Rotate it 90° along the X axis and scale it to match the width and height that you need. You can see an example here:
Figure 4.9 – Inflow scale

Figure 4.9 – Inflow scale

Changing the shape and size of the flow object will change how the fluid looks. You could have two smaller flows that collide with each other or move the flow up so that fluid drops down and creates a splash. Feel free to get creative here and get different looks for the river!

  1. Since we have now rotated and scaled the plane, let’s apply both the Rotation and Scale settings...