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

Understanding collision objects

If you want a soft body object to collide with another mesh, you need to add collision to that mesh. Otherwise, the soft body will just pass right through that object, and it will not interact with the simulation.

You can enable collision by going over to the Modifier panel and adding the Collision modifier or by selecting Collision in the Physics panel. These collision objects are used quite often when working with soft bodies, clothes, or even particle systems! You can even add collision to a soft body object itself; this way, the soft body will interact with other soft bodies as well (we will talk more about this at the end of the chapter). To disable the Collision setting, you can either click X to get rid of it or you can disable it in the viewport by toggling the eye icon, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 6.4 – Enabling and disabling collisions

Figure 6.4 – Enabling and disabling collisions

When you first add collision to an object,...