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 Foam particles

Now that the simulation is done baking, we can now set up the Foam particles. At the moment the particles are just halos, which means they are just points in three-dimensional (3D) space and won’t show up in the render. You can see an example of this here:

Figure 4.11 – Halo example

Figure 4.11 – Halo example

However, we need an actual object to be the particles. We also want to make sure whichever object we choose has as little geometry as possible, or it will slow down Blender by a lot. A UV sphere has a lot of geometry on it, so that will not work. Instead, let’s use a cone with a very low subdivision. Here’s how we can achieve that:

  1. First, select your domain object, right-click, and select Shade Smooth. This will shade the surface of the mesh in a smooth way so that we don’t see individual faces.
  2. Add a Cone object, then open the menu on the bottom left and set Vertices to 3, as illustrated in the following...