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ArtZone Heading
RealFlow: Simple "Pouring" Exercise
Added on: Mon Jul 03 2000
Page: 2 

This tutorial is demo friendly.
Note: This is a tutorial for first time RealFlow users. This is just a demo of adding
fluids and running a simulation. You should always have some thickness in your mesh
and not like my cup in the SD file. But for this tutorial it is fine.


First thing is to make a little scene in 3DSMAX for your fluids to interact with. I
included a simple little animated scene which you can load (Pour.sd). It is a cylinder with its top missing (your cup) that pours into a box that has been slightly modified (your tub).

To save your scene you need the 3DSMAX/RealFlow link plugin which can be downloaded off
RealFlow's website. Once you have your scene made go to the utilities panel and choose
the RealFlow link in the list and save your file.
It is important to keep your objects simple to make the calculations faster. But I have found that if the object is too simple particles fall right through it. For example I had a box that had Length=100, Width=100 Height=2 and 1 segment for Length, width and height.
When I put it into RealFlow particles would fall through part of the mesh. Once I increased the segments to 4 for each, everything was fine. *shrugs*


Open up RealFlow and go to preferences. [File > Preferences]
Choose 3DSMAX environment. Set the scene scale to 0.1 if you are using my SD file.
A quick note about SD files. This is the best way to import scenes into RealFlow because
all your objects will retain their animation. However you can't manipulate these objects unless you close the SD file link, thus removing the animation, so plan ahead. Now it is time to make some fluids.

Click on the fluid panel and choose circle. This creates a circle emitter in the center of your scene. Set the density to 2000. Density controls how close the particles are to each other when they are created. Now press "2" to go to the top view and align the circle emitter with the cylinder (your cup).

Press "1" to go to the front view and move the circle emitter above the cup. (Hit "4" to go back to the perspective view). When things are lined up click the Daemons panel and click on gravity. Now click BUZZ. Let this run for a moment and watch what is happening. Click BUZZ again to stop the simulation.

Time to explain a couple of more things.
The BUZZ button runs the particle simulation. The ACTION button runs the simulation and your animation. In a typical RealFlow session you use BUZZ to get your particles to settle down and get them where you want. Then use ACTION to actually make frames, meshes, etc. for your animation.
You also probably noticed that your particles passed right through the cup. Much like the Dynamics Utility in MAX you have to add the objects and daemons to the simulation.
Click on the "Edit Scene Tree" button. (It is next to the Z axis button) The scene tree will open up. Click "All to All" under shortcuts. This will make the fluids interact with everything. Close the Scene Tree.



 
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