real flow max plug in
DESCRIPTION
Este es un pequeño manual que muestra el funcionamiento el del Real Flow, el cual es un programa para simular liquidos y poder exportarlos al 3D Max StudioTRANSCRIPT
RealFlow 3D Studio Max Plug‐in
Features, Improvements and Tutorials This document describes the improvements made to the RealFlow 3D Studio Max plug‐in. The main focus areas have been workflow and performance. The code has been rewritten from scratch but care has been taken to preserve backwards compatibility. At the end of this document you can find tutorials explaining various things about workflow and new objects introduced by the plug‐in.
Installer The new plug‐in has an installer wizard so that users are no longer required to manually copy files into the 3D Studio Max directory. The installer auto‐detects which 3D Studio Max versions are installed and where. All versions of 3D Studio Max starting with 7.0 are supported, with both 32‐bit and 64‐bit builds where applicable.
Figure 1: The wizard auto‐detects 3D Studio Max versions and installation locations.
Toolbar and Menus The functionality of the plug‐in is conveniently exposed through a floating/dockable toolbar and a menu.
Figure 2: RealFlow toolbar.
The purpose of the buttons, starting from left to right:
• Export to SD: Exports the scene using the settings stored inside the scene. If this is the first time the scene is being exported, or the settings have been lost due to some other reason, the button will bring up the settings dialog.
• Export SD Settings: Allows the user to adjust the SD export settings.
• Import from SD: This can be used to import a SD file into 3D Studio Max. No settings are needed.
• Export PFlow Emitters: Can be used to export one or more PFlow emitters as a sequence of BIN files. It uses the last settings stored in the scene if available or brings up an options dialog, just like the SD exporter.
• Export PFlow Settings: Displays the options dialog for the BIN particle exporter.
• Load RealFlow Mesh: Creates a mesh object inside 3dsMax and loads its geometry from a sequence of BIN mesh files.
The Import/Export of the SD and Mesh files can also be done using 3dsMax File‐>Import…/File‐>Export… options.
Figure 3: RealFlow SD Import/Export using 3dsMax’s File I/O mechanism.
The users can configure their own toolbar by using the “Customize User Interface” dialog.
Figure 4: RealFlow toolbar actions are user configurable.
SD file support This section will discuss the usage of the SD part of the plug‐in and its improvements compared to the previous version.
Exporting 3dsMax scenes to SD file format
3dsMax scenes can be exported to .SD files by simply pressing the toolbar button. If it’s the first attempt to export the scene, the following dialog will open asking for the appropriate settings.
Figure 5: SD export settings dialog.
After the scene is exported, the specified settings will be saved in the current scene file. That means that
if you do another export using the toolbar button, the plug‐in will automatically perform the export using the settings already saved in the scene.
If you need to export using other settings, you can open the settings dialog by pressing the toolbar button or by using the RealFlow‐>SD File Export Settings menu. After you make the changes, you can export with the new settings by pressing the Export button.
The export settings are:
• Entire Scene/Selected Objects: Control over objects being exported.
• Export Non‐Renderable Objects: Objects marked as non‐renderable will be exported. (Useful for bones/biped systems).
• Deformation Autodetect: The plug‐in will determine if the object being exported is a rigid or a soft body object. The object will be treated as a soft body object in one of the following 3 cases: a) it has a soft body modifier applied; b) it’s a derived object (it has modifiers applied); c) it’s explicitly set by the user as a soft body object (Object Properties ‐> RealFlow tab).
• Deformation Yes: All objects will be exported as soft body objects.
• Deformation No: All objects will be exported as rigid body objects.
• Time Output: Control the number of frames to be exported.
• Camera: The camera from which the scene is to be exported. The current one (if any) will be used as default.
• Export File: The actual .SD filename and path where the scene will be exported.
Soft Body objects Soft body objects are now supported in 3D Studio Max in two different ways: through a separate soft body object and through a modifier.
A soft body object and a soft body modifier are linked to the original SD file through two properties: SD file name and SD object name (see figure 5). Changing the name of the object or the path to the SD file is not recommended but can be used e.g. when the SD file has been moved to a different directory. Nodes with a broken link (bad file path or object name) will show up as a simple cube in the viewport.
Please note that either of these two objects (“RFSoftBody” and “RFSoftBodyModifier”) can NOT be created manually by users.
When importing a SD file that contains soft body objects the following scenarios could happen:
• A new “RFSoftBody” object will be created if the imported soft body object is not present in the current scene.
• A new “RFSoftBodyModifier” will be applied on an existing object when the object is not an “RFSoftBody” object or it doesn’t have a “RFSoftBodyModifier” already applied.
• If the object is already present in the scene and it’s an “RFSoftBody” object or it has an “RFSoftBodyModifier” applied, the plug‐in will assign the positioning data (translation, rotation, scaling) and will update the SD link file and object name attributes to point to the file being imported.
Both “RFSoftBody” object and “RFSoftBodyModifier” will use file offsets for each frame and will load geometry from disk when the current frame changes, ensuring optimal memory usage.
A soft body object can be used as a normal 3D Studio Max object, which means it can be instanced, copied or referenced and used in combination with different object or world space modifiers.
Figure 6: Soft Body object and Soft Body modifier.
MAXScript support The SD functionality is also exposed to MAXScript. The command to import SD files is:
rfImportSD file:path_to_file
When using the command to export scenes, the export settings can either be taken from the scene, or explicitly specified. To use the settings stored inside the scene, invoke the command like this:
rfExportSD output:path_to_file
To specify the options explicitly, you can add one or more of the following arguments:
• deformation:YES/NO turns on per‐frame geometry export on the exported objects. The
default is “Autodetect”.
• camera:name to select which camera to use. The default is to use the active camera (if any).
• entireScene:YES/NO exports the entire scene or just the selected objects. The default is to export everything.
• firstFrame:number specifies the first frame to export. The default is first frame from the
active time segment.
• lastFrame:number specifies the last frame to export. The default is the last frame from the
active time segment.
RealFlowspecific object attributes A RealFlow tab is added in the “Object Properties” dialog for the currently selected objects. RealFlow soft body objects, cameras, lights and particle system will have the options disabled since they are not supported. The tab contains attributes which control how the exporter treats the object:
• Export deformation: this can be used as an object‐level override for the deformation mode which is specified in the export options.
Figure 7: RealFlow‐specific object attributes.
These attributes are dynamically added to object only when they are set to a non‐default value.
Progress reporting Both the import and export processes report progress through the main 3D Studio Max progress bar, in the status line. The user can cancel at any time by pressing the ESC key. Please note that aborting an import before any frames have been read will leave all the imported objects at the origin.
Figure 8: RealFlow SD Export progress bar.
Miscellaneous improvements • Large file support: the plug‐in uses 64‐bit offsets for file operations, so there are no restrictions
on the size of the SD files.
• UVW mapping: the plug‐in will correctly import and export texture coordinates now.
RealFlow Particles in 3D Studio Max This section covers the part of the plug‐in which handles sequences of particle BIN files.
RealFlow Standard Flow using the Particle Flow System Three RealFlow operators have been implemented for the Particle Flow system so that particles simulated in RF can be manipulated using the full power of PFlow inside Max.
A Standard flow implies having only 5 operators defined within the PFlow System: RealFlowFileBirth, RealFlowFileUpdate, RealFlowDeathTest, Shape and Display. Figure 8 shows the Standard Flow when using RealFlow as an emitter. This flow can be created manually by the user by placing a PF_Source node in the scene and replacing the default Birth operator with an instance of RealFlowFileBirth. To have particle positions updated, one has to place the RealFlowFileUpdate operator in the event container. The RealFlowDeathTest operator is needed to get rid of particles marked dead by the RealFlow File Update operator.
Figure 9: A Standard flow.
RealFlow File Birth operator The RealFlow File Birth operator acts as the default Birth operator. It feeds the entire PFlow system with particles.
Figure 10: RealFlow file birth operator settings.
The settings for the RealFlowFileBirth operator are:
• RealFlow .BIN file sequence: will open a dialog box allowing the user to select a file from a sequence of files containing simulated particles behavior. After the file has been selected, the prefix for the emitter is calculated based on the format and padding size specified by the user in the “File name options” group.
• Format: has 4 predefined file formats that match RealFlow’s File name Options.
Figure 11: File format options.
• Padding Size: the number of digits used to represent the frame. The frame number will replace “#” from the selected file name format when the final file name is calculated.
• Prefix: replaces the “name” part in the name format specification.
• Emit Start: specifies the initial frame in which the RealFlowFileBirth emitter should start emitting particles.
• Emit Stop: specifies the frame when the RealFlowFileBirth operator should stop emitting particles. Please note that if the particles have speed in the .BIN sequence files, particles will continue to move after the emitter stops emitting new particles.
• Offset: specify the first frame of the .BIN file sequence which will be used by the emitter.
• Inherit emitter TM: all particle positions will inherit the emitter’s position and orientation in the scene. In this way, one can keep particles “under” their own emitter.
RealFlow File Update operator The RealFlow File Update operator updates position, speed and other custom channels information for all particles generated by the RealFlow File Birth operator.
It’s an optional operator, meaning that if you are routing particles to another container (event) and you don’t need to keep the particle information (position, speed etc) synchronized with RealFlow files, you don’t have to use a RealFlow File Update operator in that container. Simply Display or Delete them as in figure 11 below.
Figure 13: Workflow when routed particles are updated. Figure 12: Workflow when routed particles are deleted.
When routing RealFlow particle information to another PFlow container (event) and you want to keep particle information synchronized with the RealFlow files, you need to place another RealFlow File Update operator in that container. (See figure 12)
The RealFlow File Update operator also acts like a garbage collector for every PFlow event container is placed in. Its role is to check for dead particles by comparing its current particle IDs with the particle IDs stored in the current RealFlow .BIN frame file. If it finds any dead particles, it will mark and send them to a RealFlow Death Test operator in order to be routed to another container event. From there they can be deleted from PFlow if needed.
RealFlow Channels: MAXScript PFlow operators can access particle attributes which are computed by RealFlow like viscosity, density etc.
Figure 14: RealFlow File Update operator settings.
These attributes are exposed through the custom data channels available in PFlow particle containers. The custom data channels can store less data than RealFlow produces, so the users must select which particle attributes they want to use. Each attribute will use up a certain number of value slots of the available space, as follows:
• Force, Vorticity, Normals, UVW: 3 slots each
• Isolation Time, Viscosity, Density, Pressure, Mass, Temperature: 1 slot each
The selected channels will be distributed over the 16 available value slots in this order:
• The first 12 values go to the particleMatrix channel.
• The next 3 values go to the particleVector channel.
• The last value goes to the particleFloat channel.
The Neighbor count attribute, if selected, is made available through the particleInteger channel.
Please consult the MAXScript documentation for further details on how Particle Flow is integrated with MAXScript.
The following particle attributes are available through standard PFlow data channels:
• Position data can be read through the particlePosition channel.
• Velocity is available as particleSpeed.
• The RealFlow particle ID is in particleID.
Please note that the position you get from the particlePosition channel does not exactly match the position in the BIN file. We need to perform some adjustments on this value in order for the rendered position to match the position from the BIN file, which is what matters. Also, the velocity channel in PFlow is expressed in meters per time tick, not meters per second as in the BIN file. In order to compute the original values you can apply the following formulas (MAXScript code):
realVelocity = particleSpeed * ticksPerFrame * frameRate
renderPosition = particlePosition + particleSpeed * ticksPerFrame / 2.0
The names ticksPerFrame and frameRate are built‐in MAXScript variables.
RealFlow Death Test operator The RealFlow Death Test simply gets all particles marked dead by the RealFlow File Update operator and routes them to another event in order to be deleted from PFlow. It’s very important to place it under a RealFlow File Update operator since the order of operator evaluation in PFlow is top‐bottom.
Motion blur for particles Particles imported using the RealFlowFileBirth operator support motion blur when they are rendered.
RealFlow File Birth operator and MAXScript The following attributes are exported to MAXScript:
• Format
• Path
• Prefix
• Padding
• InheritEmitterTM
• EmitStart
• EmitStop
• Offset
Also all above mentioned parameters are animatable. (Figure 14)
MAXScript Ids for the “Format” parameter are:
• Name#.ext: 0
• Name.ext.#: 1
• Name#.ext: 2
• Name_#.ext: 3
RealFlow File Update operator and MAXScript The following attributes are exported to MAXScript:
• Channels
The parameter is animatable. (Figure 14)
MAXScript Ids for the “Channels” parameter are:
• Force: 1
• Vorticity: 2
• Normals: 4
• UVW: 8
• Isolation Time: 16
• Viscosity: 32
• Density: 64
• Pressure: 128
• Mass: 256
• Temperature: 512
• Neighbors number: 1024
Ids for “Channels” parameter can be combined with bitwise OR from MAXScript.
Figure 15: RealFlowFileBirth and RealFlowFileUpdate operator have animatable parameters.
Exporting ParticleFlow systems to .BIN particle files
Particle Flow systems can be exported to .BIN particle files by simply pressing the toolbar button. If it’s the first attempt to export PFlow emitters from the current scene, the following dialog will open asking for the appropriate settings.
Figure 16: RealFlowFileBirth and RealFlowFileUpdate operator have animatable parameters.
After the scene is exported, the specified settings will be saved in the current scene file. That means that
if you do another export using the toolbar button, the plug‐in will automatically perform the export using the settings already saved in the scene.
If you need to export using other settings, you can open the settings dialog by pressing the toolbar button or by using the RealFlow‐>Export PFlow particle Settings menu. After you make the changes, you can export with the new settings by pressing the Export button.
Performance The main drawback of the 3D Studio Max PFlow system is that it can’t be used in a non history‐dependent manner. That means every frame depends on the last one. When you move back in time using the slider, PFlow will automatically evaluate the operators for ALL the frames between frame 1 and the current frame. This is not needed for RealFlow, but it cannot be disabled and therefore seeking backwards using the time slider is slow.
To work around this problem use the settings in the “Quantity Multiplier” section of the interface. These values control the percentage of the particles which are read from the BIN files. A lower setting will result in poorer visual quality but better performance because the system has to load and display fewer particles. There are separate settings for viewport display and rendering.
Old particle importer The “NL Particles 2” emitter, named now “Particle Loader”, is still available in the UI. We will keep this alternate method because its performance is better than the PFlow approach (due to the reasons explained above).
Loading particles with Particle Loader This section covers the part of the plug‐in which handles sequences of particle BIN files using the Particle Loader object.
The ParticleLoader object can be found in the “Geometry” sub‐tab of the “Create” tab under “RealFlow” combo selection.
Figure 17: ParticleLoader object.
The following are the ParticleLoader properties:
Figure 18: ParticleLoader object properties.
The settings for the ParticleLoader object are:
• Icon Size: Icon size in viewport
• Emitter Hidden: Show/Hide the particle emitter in the viewport
• Display Every: Will display every X particles in the viewport
• Render Every: Will render every X particles in the viewport
• Select File Sequence: Will open a File Open dialog for the user to select a .BIN file sequence
• Path: Will show the path to the current loaded .BIN sequence
• Prefix: Will show the name of the loaded .BIN file
• Lock last frame: Locks the last frame of loaded sequence
• Invert sequence: The .BIN sequence is read in an inverse order
• Offset: Indicates the frame from where the animation will start
RealFlow Meshes in 3D Studio Max This section covers the part of the plug‐in which handles sequences of RealFlow BIN mesh files.
Loading RealFlow meshes using MeshLoader object Sequences of BIN mesh files can be loaded using the MeshLoader object. The MeshLoader object can be
created using the toolbar button, File‐>Import menu, RealFlow‐>”Create Bin Mesh object” menu or from the 3dsMax “Create” tab.
When creating the MeshLoader from the RealFlow toolbar/menu, a File Open dialog will open asking for the .BIN mesh file sequence. After the file sequence is selected, a MeshLoader object will be created and placed at the center of the scene (0, 0, 0).
The default viewport representation for the MeshLoader object is a cube. Whenever there is an error loading the .BIN file sequence, or there is no sequence loaded, this default representation will be used.
MeshLoader object properties The following are the MeshLoader properties.
Figure 19: MeshLoader object properties.
The settings for the MeshLoader object are:
• BIN Mesh sequence: will open a dialog box allowing the user to select a file from a sequence of .BIN mesh files. After the file has been selected, the prefix for the emitter is calculated based on the format and padding size specified by the user in the “File name options” group.
• Format: has 4 predefined file formats that match RealFlow’s File name Options.
Figure 20: File format options.
• Padding Size: the number of digits used to represent the frame. The frame number will replace “#” from the selected file name format when the final file name is calculated.
• Prefix: replaces the “name” part in the name format specification.
• Start: specifies the initial frame in which the MeshLoader object should start loading the mesh sequence.
• Offset: specify the first frame of the .BIN file sequence which will be used by the MeshLoader object.
• Strength: This value is used when Motion Blur is turned ON and acts as a multiplier for the mesh velocity channel found in the file.
• File Frame Information: Will display per frame information for the mesh, like the number of fluids found, if they have UVW data and if the velocity channel (speed) is present. Note: The velocity channel is used for Motion Blur.
Motion blur support RealFlow meshes usually have unstable topology: vertices are created or removed at each frame. This causes problems with motion blur in most renderers, since this effect needs the same number of vertices in every sub‐step to function correctly. The plug‐in tries to work around this by using the same BIN file for all sub‐frames when it detects that motion blur is enabled. The vertex positions are displaced using the velocity channel (speed) stored in the BIN file, to obtain the correct data for motion blur (figure 21, 22).
Setting the “exposure” of the render too high (longer than one frame) to lengthen the blur can still cause the plug‐in to evaluate two different BIN files, resulting in visual artifacts. It is better to control the blur length using the “motion blur strength” setting than by increasing the exposure time.
Figure 21: MeshLoader object without Motion Blur.
Figure 22: MeshLoader object with Motion Blur.
MAXScript support for MeshLoader objects MeshLoader objects are fully exposed to MAXScript. The creation process and all MeshLoader object parameters are available through MAXScript.
The properties of a MeshLoader object can be seen by applying the showProperties MAXScript command on a MeshLoader object. (E.g. showProperties $MeshLoader01)
The following command can be used to create a MeshLoader object from MAXScript.
rfImportBinMesh <file:bin_filename> [<prefix:prefix> <format:value> <paddingSize:value> <start:value> <offset:value> <motionBlurStrength:value>]
The only required parameter is <file>. All the other parameters will use the default values if they are not specified in the import command.
RealFlow MeltMaterial in 3D Studio Max This section covers the part of the plug‐in which handles the MeltMaterial in 3D Studio Max.
The RealFlow MeltMaterial can be used to combine several materials based on the fluid weights contained in a RealFlow mesh file. This version of MeltMaterial has support for the default 3dsMax Scanline Renderer and mental ray® renderer.
The RealFlow MeltMaterial can be created in the same way all the other 3dsMax materials are created. Please note that due to a 3dsMax limitation, when rendering with mental ray® renderer, the MeltMaterial cannot be used on more than one MeshLoader object. By breaking this rule, you can get unexpected results and even crashes.
RealFlow MeltMaterial properties The following are the RealFlow MeltMaterial properties.
Figure 23: RealFlow MeltMaterial.
The settings for the RealFlow MeltMaterial are:
• Melt Index: This gives the user some control over the appearance of the parts of the mesh where several fluids meet. A value of 0 will blend the material colors using the fluid weights exactly as they are stored in the BIN file. Increasing the value towards 1 will exaggerate the weights, brightening the blend. Negative values will scale down the weights so the result will be darker. (Figures 23‐25)
Figure 24: Rendered with mental ray® using Melt Index parameter set to ‐1.0.
Figure 25: Rendered with mental ray® using Melt Index parameter set to 0.0.
Figure 26: Rendered with mental ray® using Melt Index parameter set to 1.0.
RealFlow 3D Studio Max plugin AutoUpdate
The plug‐in has a built‐in update mechanism which can be used to manually or automatically check for plug‐in updates. By default, the plug‐in automatically checks for updates on every 3dsMax startup and if it finds an update, the user will be notified with a dialog box.
Figure 27: Notification for a new Plug‐in version.
Automatic checks can be turned off in the Customize‐>Preferences‐>RealFlow panel.
Figure 28: General RealFlow settings panel.
Tutorial – Exporting a scene to a SD file This tutorial covers a typical workflow when trying to export to a RealFlow SD file. We’ll try to make a simple Rigid Body animation by placing some barrels in front of the octopus when it attacks the pirate.
1. Open 3dsMax and load “..\scenes\pirateroom.max”. Note: Since this scene was created in 3dsMax 9, this tutorial only applies to 3dsMax versions greater or equal to 9.
Figure 29: Pirateroom.max file loaded in 3dsMax.
2. There are 500 animated frames in this file and we want to export them all to a SD file. We press
the toolbar button, and if this is the first time we are trying to export this scene, a dialog will open letting us choose the right settings for the SD file we want to export.
Figure 30: Pirateroom.max file loaded in 3dsMax.
Set deformation to “No”, since we don’t want to export soft bodies or skinned meshes and leave all the other settings to their default values. Set the export file path and hit “Export”.
These settings will be saved in the scene, so another export will automatically use the settings we’ve already specified. If we want to change the settings for a future export, we can open the
“SD File Export Settings” by pressing the toolbar button.
3. Open RealFlow and create a new project named “Pirateroom.flw” and then load the exported “pirateroom.sd”.
Figure 31: Pirateroom.sd file loaded in RealFlow.
Note: If the scene is too big, you can use a different scale for it, like 0.01.
4. Add a gravity daemon to the scene.
5. Select the barrels from the right (barril, barril01, barril02, barril03), and in order to be able to move them, click on the SD<>Curve button under the “Node params” rollup. Move them to the left and place them between the pirate and the octopus, so when the octopus tries to grab the pirate, it will hit them.
Figure 32: Barrels placed between the pirate and the octopus.
6. Keeping the current barrels selected, select the “barril04” object too. On the “Node Params” set “Dynamics” to “Rigid Body” and on the “Rigid Body” rollup and set “Dyn motion” to “Yes”.
7. Next, we set the pirate and the octopus to act as colliders, but unaffected by gravity. Select all Bip* objects for the pirate and “Sphere04“,“Sphere06“,“Sphere08“,“Sphere09“,“Sphere10“ for the octopus. On the “Node params” rollup, set “Dynamics” to “Rigid Body” and set “Dyn motion” to “No”.
8. The room objects need to be set up as static colliders. Select “Plane02”, “Line07”, “Line07”, “Object01” and “Object02”, set “Dynamics” to “Rigid Body” and “Dyn motion” to “No”.
9. Simulate from frame 0 and export all objects from the scene. You can verify that by checking the export setting from the Export‐>Export Central ... (F12) menu.
Figure 33: Export Central dialog for Pirateroom.flw scene.
10. Now it’s time to import the simulated scene in 3dsMax. There are two import options available: We can import the “animation.sd” file in a new 3dsMax scene or we can import it over our existing “pirateroom.max” scene. The second option is more advantageous, since it will only modify the animation for the objects, keeping the current object modifiers applied. By using the first option, the plug‐in will create all objects at import time as Editable Mesh objects.
The import is simply done by pressing the toolbar button. A “File Open” dialog will open letting us choose the path to the “animation.sd” file.
Figure 34: Animated pirateroom.sd file imported back in 3dsMax.
Tutorial – Importing a soft body object into 3D Studio Max This tutorial covers a typical workflow when trying to import a soft body object in 3dsMax. We will import a simple soft sphere hitting the ground.
1. Open RealFlow and create a plane and a sphere. Add a gravity daemon.
Figure 35: Realwave object imported in 3dsMax.
2. In the “Node params” for the Sphere, set “Dynamics” to Soft Body. 3. Make sure you have all the objects selected in Export‐>Export Central… (F12) and start
simulating 100 frames.
4. Open 3dsMax and import the animation file by pressing the toolbar button and browsing for the “animation.sd” file.
5. You should end up with 100 animation frames in 3dsMax.
Figure 36: Soft body sphere imported in 3dsMax.
Tutorial – Realwave objects in 3D Studio Max In this tutorial we will be importing a Realwave object into Max.
1. Start RealFlow, create a Realwave object and a new cube object. Move the cube above the Realwave object. Add a gravity daemon.
Figure 37: Realwave object.
2. Select the cube object and on the “Node rollup” set “Dynamics” to Rigid Body. 3. Simulate 100 frames.
4. Start 3dsMax and import the “realwave01.sd” by pressing the toolbar button. The object will be black when seen from above:
Figure 38: Realwave object.
5. The Realwave object is black because its normals are pointing the wrong way. Select the object and go to the Modify tab. Enable the “Invert Normals” checkbox.
Figure 39: Realwave object properties.
6. The object should render correctly now.
Figure 40: Realwave object imported in 3dsMax.
Tutorial – RealFlow particles in Particle Flow This tutorial covers a typical workflow when trying to import RealFlow particles in 3dsMax using a Particle Flow system. We will import 4 emitters simulated in RealFlow.
1. Open RealFlow and create 4 emitters, a plane, a Kill_volume daemon and a Gravity daemon.
Figure 41: Scene with 4 emitters created in RealFlow.
2. Simulate 100 frames.
Figure 42: Simulated scene in RealFlow.
3. Open 3dsMax and create 4 PFlow emitters.
Figure 43: 4 PFlow emitters in 3dsMax (top view).
4. Open the Particle Viewer and remove the following default operators from all 4 containers: Birth, Position Icon, Speed and Rotation.
5. Place a RealFlowBirth operator in all 4 containers.
Figure 44: RealFlowBirth operators added to all 4 containers.
6. Select the BIN file sequence for each birth operator and set the emission range to start at frame 0 and end at 100.
Figure 45: The settings for the RealFlowBirth operator.
7. Add a RealFlowFileUpdate and a RealFlowDeathTest operator to all 4 containers. Please note that we need the RealFlowDeathTest operator, because we have simulated the scene using the “Kill_Volume” daemon in RealFlow.
Figure 46: Containers having all 3 RealFlow operators added.
8. We don’t need the dead particles, so we route all of them to a single container and we delete them.
Figure 47: All dead particles are routed to a single container and deleted.
9. Close the Particle Viewer. In the viewport you will see that all particles are created relative to their PFlow Source emitter. To get the same positions as in RealFlow, uncheck “Inherit emitter TM” on every RealFlowBirth operator. The final image should look like this:
Figure 48: All dead particles are routed to a single container and deleted.
10. You can add various PFlow operators if you wish to alter the particles in any way (motion, color etc.). For example you can route some particles based on their age and increase their speed. Don’t forget to add RealFlow update and death operators to all the containers (except those with only a delete operator in them).
Figure 49: PFlow Speed operator applied to some routed particles.
Tutorial – A RealFlow mesh rendered using the MeltMaterial This tutorial shows the basics of using the RealFlow Melt Material with mental ray®.
1. Start RealFlow and create 4 emitters, a plane and a Mesh object.
Figure 50: 4 emitters created in RealFlow.
2. Right click on the Mesh object and choose “Insert all fluids”. 3. Simulate 100 frames.
Figure 51: 4 emitters simulated as a mesh object in RealFlow.
4. To bring the simulated mesh into 3dsMax, create a MeshLoader object by pressing the toolbar button. A dialog will open letting you chose the simulated mesh file sequence.
Figure 52: MeshLoader object imported into 3dsMax
5. Next we apply a MeltMaterial on the MeshLoader object. Open the Material Editor (M) and press the “Standard” button. Choose “RealFlow MeltMaterial” from the list.
6. By looking at the MeshLoader object properties, we see that it contains 4 fluids.
Figure 53: MeshLoader object properties showing that it contains 4 fluids.
7. Having 4 fluids on the MeshLoader object, we need to create 4 sub materials on our MeltMaterial.
Figure 54: MeltMaterial with 4 sub‐materials.
8. Assign the MeltMaterial to our MeshLoader object by simply dragging the material onto it. 9. Change the renderer to mental ray® renderer and press the Render button.
Figure 55: MeltMaterial applied on a MeshLoader object and renderer with mental ray® renderer.