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

Now, we need to use the particle system we just created as an inflow for the simulation. This means that every particle is going to emit smoke and fire into the scene. Let’s set up all the settings and values for the simulation and bake it out!

Setting up the domain

Follow these steps:

  1. Of course, we need a domain object. A quick and easy way to do this is to select the Icosphere and choose Object | Quick Effects | Quick Smoke:
Figure 5.9 – Quick Smoke

Figure 5.9 – Quick Smoke

This will automatically add a domain for us with the default smoke settings!

  1. The domain is currently the wrong size and in the wrong place. Let’s move it up so that it’s on top of the plane and scale it up. Since we are creating an explosion, we want the domain to be pretty large:
Figure 5.10 – Domain size

Figure 5.10 – Domain size

Here are the dimensions I used:

Figure 5.11 – Domain dimensions

Figure 5.11 – Domain...