I'm testing if and how the blender fluid simulation can improve my fun with Vue.

In the proces i made this little movie.

It;s fun to play with!

www.youtube.com/watch

Looks cool!

Looks nice :) 

I used the free giveaway version of Realflow and Vue 6 Infinite to make this :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1UuzbpnBwo

Hmm, it kinda reminds me I should get back into that, I used to love creating things with Realflow, unfortunately with Vue 7 Complete they seem to have omitted the fact that it can only run Cornucopia bought Python scripts so I cannot use the Python script in Vue 7.

Anyway enjoy :) 

Jon

Jon, great!  

Did you use the python obj. secuence importer?  I have trouble exporting the fluid back into VUE. Somehow Vue doesn´t read the obj. format from blender, i tried all different settings...

I can however read the lightwave export, but that take´s ages to convert and there is no sequence importer. 

I still have to figure out some good settings in both of the programs.

It´s fun playing with.. But my computer is smoking ;-) 

Here is another one, not much different , but a slightly higer resolution:

www.youtube.com/watch

Hey Cherryman,

Yes indeed, I used the obj sequence importer, but seems a long time ago now, I think I tried out 2 importers, one worked better than the other if I remember correctly.

I could bring the fluid into Vue without too many issues, but had issues with any other objects in the scene.

Your fluids look nice and once textured would make a cool looking animation, but as you said it is quite taxing to import the objects and animate etc.

I am currently using Windows 7 and Vue 7 Complete, no matter what I do I crash everytime I try to render an animation. This could be down to codec issues, a vue issue or windows issue, I do not know to be honest, so animation is currently out for me, but you have resparked my interest in fluid animation and will be something I will be looking at again pretty soon :)

Jon

There are two things that cause trouble on the simulation side of things, the resolution of the terrain object, and the matching the scale.
I suspect that for RealFlow these aren't as big a problem as they are for Blender.

If you're having a problem with OBJ files from Blender (as opposed to BOBJ files, which can't be read in Vue due to the gzip module still being borked) then it shouldn't be too difficult to fix for my script (Mark's uses Vue's own importer) but it's probably down to using the right export options.

Hello nruddock,

It is indeed not the script i having problems with (not even come to that yet ;-) , it is the reading of Vue of the obj. file.  It seems to work fine with other meshes, but the fluid mesh keeps returning a simple box (the bounderies)  .

So far i can not find any consistancy in my problems (due to lack of knoledge i suppose)

I will keep fidling around, and see what i can come up with. Got some great scenes in my mind with the fluid. And for stillshots importing is not a problem.

Quote - It seems to work fine with other meshes, but the fluid mesh keeps returning a simple box (the bounderies) .

This may be just down to Vue running low enough on resources to not display the full mesh, so check your display options (you can always try using wireframe).
A screenshot or two to illustrate the problem would likely be instructive.

Hope you get the problems sorted Cherryman, I could chat about realflow but dont want to end up hijacking your thread.

Overall from the start you have made it is looking good, and yep could definately be a drop in resources.

What is your system spec?

Jon

I don't think it is a resourceproblem because then the render should show the final mesh...??

My specs are:

Q8400 core2 quad @ 2.66 Ghz
3.00 GB
Nvidea GTX 7900
Vue 7 xStream

Here is a screenshot from the export options of blender.  As i dit say earlier, i tried exporting a mesh object in the .obj format and that worked fine...

And this what i get in Vue.

PS. When i use lightwave it imports fine. (Hughe filesize !!)  So i still think it can't be resources..

Lightwave example:

The OBJ export is obviously only giving you the original cube you used for the fluid, see if selecting "Apply Modifiers" makes any difference.

nruddock thank you very much! 

That does the trick.. (so obvious afterwards..  ;-)..

This will speed up my workflow! 

Here is a quick and dirty material test.

Hehe, very nice mate, very nice indeed :)

Jon

Can you export in collada from blender? Would keep the mesh animation intact in Vue...

Quote - Can you export in collada from blender? Would keep the mesh animation intact in Vue...

I don't think that would work.

It also would be less preferred than OBJ as it would limit which script you could use (it would have to Mark's which loads all the objects at once via Vue's own import, which inevitably leads to memory problems).
My script only has one frame of mesh in memory at a time, but is limited to reading OBJ and RealFlow data (it would be able to read Blender's BOBJ format if Eon fixed the gzip module).

I have used your script with realflow and loved it, think thats how I made the Vue 6 realflow thing work.

However, I can't get it to work in Vue 7 Complete, and I can lay that one at E-On's feet, I originally bought 7 Complete as it was originally advertised to run 3rd person python scripts, which 3rd person should be me, you or anyone to be honest. But they later changed it to read Cornucopia purchased scripts, which annoyed me to say the least.

So currently anything I want to run with Python I have to use 6 infinite for. 

Jon

Jon, thats a pitty.  You can however do stillshots!

Maybe a work around?  Can you import poser/Dazz ?    Blender > Poser animation  > Vue ?

Just thinking out loud, i have no experience with poser.

In the mean time, here is another resolution test::

www.youtube.com/watch

Noel, why wouldn't an animated collada file work? I've been able to use animated collada files in V7, whithout the need of a script...

I am not sure Cherryman, to be honest, its just easier to use Vue 6 at the moment, as I can get it to work without worrying about extra details like converting between different types.

Realflow is incredibly powerful and you can produce some excellent results with it, I am installing Win 7 next couple of days and will try some more stuff after I have reinstalled everything.

Jon

Quote - Noel, why wouldn't an animated collada file work? I've been able to use animated collada files in V7, whithout the need of a script...

Each frame of the fluid is a different mesh (with a different no. of vertices and faces) and I wasn't aware that COLLADA supported that kind of animation, but if it does and both RealFlow/Blender and Vue support that mode, then that would be good (but I suspect memory usage would still be a concern).

Each frame is a different mesh? Oh, ok I didn't know this. So maybe this wouldn't work in the collada format.

Quote - Each frame is a different mesh? Oh, ok I didn't know this. So maybe this wouldn't work in the collada format.

The COLLADA file format does support multiple meshes, but I suspect that neither RealFlow or Blender will collect the meshes for a whole simulation into one file (Vue might or might not read such a file properly), but you'd still need some sort of script to setup the marshalling of the mesh for each frame (doing it by hand, while possible would be incredibly tedious).

For stills, as you're only dealing with a single mesh, it's no different than working with any other imported object.

Quote -

I am currently using Windows 7 and Vue 7 Complete, no matter what I do I crash everytime I try to render an animation. This could be down to codec issues, a vue issue or windows issue, I do not know to be honest, so animation is currently out for me, but you have resparked my interest in fluid animation and will be something I will be looking at again pretty soon :)

Jon

Hi I had exactly the same problems when I moved to Windows 7 except mine would not let me render an animation with an atmosphere of any type apart from default. I used Silverblades Options for display and when I reverted back to default settings I can now render any type of animation again. very puzzled .......

Anyway love the fluid animation is blender free?

I am not sure if Blender is for you Andrew, it won't make you part with any money lol :) 

Jon

PS : Yes, Blender is free

Here is a first WIP , i'm not happy with the resolution yet.  The spray is to large and cubelike.
I tried disguising it with the materials.. but it's not satisfying and i don't like disguising.

The smooth angle settings in VUE does not seem to make any difference...

This is fun but very time consuming and smoking processors ;-)

This is the source file:

I made a little rock, put a lighthouse on it and exported that into Blender.
I run the fluid simulation in Blender
Then I exported the fluid AND the obstacle back into VUE
Then i replaced the obstacle with the original again (Replace object fit)
Texturing and rendering

WIP:

So now back to the fluid and finetune the settings

Unles you've get an amazing amount of memory, you'll have a hard time getting the grid resolution down to sub-metre level to resolve the spray (in Blender you would use a particle system for the fine detail).

Yes nruddock, that seems the problem i'm encountering. I have windows xp 32 bit with 3G ram..

But i'm not giving up yet! ;-)   I'm new to blender so i have to figure out how to modify and tweak the water the best way. 

In the above sample i had the particle system turned on, but there does not seem to be an option where you can adjust particle size seperatly.  There is however more to discover, i still have to find out what the "tracer particles" are..  or maybe a seperate particle system combined with waves..  i will see.

In the Domain Advanced settings you need to adjust the "Realworld-size" (which I think is in metres) to something appropriate for the scene (unfortunately the standard GUI limits this value to 10) otherwise you end up with a noticeable "real water used on a scale model" look as seen in some Thunderbirds etc. episodes.

To get much beyond a domain resolution of 256 (when using auto gridlevels), you need to move to a 64bit version (if there is one).

Increase the scale of the lighthouse to make the water drops smaller.

Quote - Increase the scale of the lighthouse to make the water drops smaller.

Wouldn't work, as you have to increase the size of the fluid domain correspondingly.
The only way of decreasing the size of the blobs is to increase the simulation resolution.

Scale lighthouse and then cover more area with the water.  Water is the same density though.  Should be fine, no?  Not the same as increasing resolution or re-sizing water.

It will use more RAM though.

Scaling only helps if you do not change the Domein, but that leaves you with a smaller water surface.

I did change the realworld settings.  Because of the effect. It does makes a lot of difference in an animation, a little less with still shots.

This guy has a nice resolution..  But i'm afraid he has more power.

www.youtube.com/watch

Patience and CPU power.  I don't think he used a farm.

When i get above a certain resolution i get an error and Blender stops..

Actually it is not resolution, but memmory usage , it all hangs together.  With me the critical point is around 250 MB usage for the fluid...   Above that is crashes.

The older Blender and RealFlow maybe didn't need as much RAM way back in 2006.

One difference that was important in older versions of Blender was that the fluid simulation could be run externally (using a config file written out by Blender) which allowed more memory to be devoted to the sim, whereas the newer versions run sims internally, meaning that (for a 32-bit EXE) what's loaded in Blender reduces the memory available.

As for scaling objects up and keeping the domain the same size, you can only do that a little before objects get too close to the edges and the sim output starts to look wrong where the fluid is squeezed between objects and the sides of the domain.

I finally got around to produce an image with the Blender fluid and VUE

I used the fluid sim twice, one for the flow downhill, the second for the spray in the air.
Actually it are still shots, but i dit not succeed yet in importing the animation.

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php