RealFlow Tutorials

We will begin this tutorial with the simulation of our RealFlow assets, and discuss some important RealFlow settings to keep in mind as we prepare our assets to be used within Maya. Once we bring our RealFlow assets into Maya, we will explore topics that include setting up shaders and materials for realistic water, controlling the rendered appearance of RealFlow splash particles, rendering Hybrido foam and whitecaps in Maya, incorporating mist into our renders, and we will learn how all of these things can be accomplished without having to rely on the RealFlow RenderKit for Maya. By the time you complete this tutorial, you will have a better understanding of how to render your own Hybrido simulations using Maya.

It is important to develop good workflow habits early in your RealFlow education, so we will start by learning the importance of properly setting up your RealFlow projects as well as how to efficiently move around within the RealFlow interface. From there, we will learn how to start working with RealFlow fluid particles – learning about the important attributes that affect particle behavior, as well as how we can use daemons to add dynamic forces such as wind, gravity, and air resistance to our simulations. Another critical concept to understand within RealFlow is the importance of scale. We will teach you how to properly compensate for real-world scale within RealFlow, ensuring that your liquids and other dynamics behave correctly. We will also take time to explore some of the powerful new features found in RealFlow 2012, including dynamic object fracturing, using the Retiming function to quickly add time-warping and slow-motion effects to our RealFlow simulations, as well as many other important tools and critical concepts that you will need to be aware of whenever starting out in RealFlow.

We'll begin this project by setting up our initial objects, emitters and daemons. Once we have everything ready to go, we'll introduce our filter daemon and examine exactly how it works, and how we can use it to move particles into different emitters. Once we have the filter daemon working, we can use exclusive links to affect our emitters in various ways. We'll then look at various attributes and ways of changing particle values to show the vast range of different methods we can use to filter particles. We'll then combine our knowledge along with a few more daemons to create an interested effect.

We'll begin this project by importing our geometry into RealFlow and creating our initial emitter. We'll then add some random motion using a noise field daemon. To get a squashing effect, we'll use a Dspline daemon to pull all our particles into a line. Finally, we'll use the magic daemon to make our particle cloud form our second word. Our job is not done since we need to animate these daemons to work together in a specific sequence. Once our particles are moving nicely, we'll take a look at some meshing challenges and see how to use a drag daemon to fix certain issues. We'll finish by taking our mesh into Maya and creating the shader and render setup to output our final images.

We'll begin this project by looking at a few simulations using each daemon separately and the issues with each. We'll then add our initial emitter and begin working with the Morph daemon. After learning how the morph daemon operates and which parameters we need to edit to control it, we'll add in our magic daemon. We'll then take a look at how the Filter daemon works and we'll begin setting it to divide our particles. Once we have our particles controlled correctly using exclusive and global links, we'll make some final adjustments to our morph daemon for more appealing motion. We'll finish by meshing our particles and troubleshooting a few mesh issues.

We will begin this course by learning how to import RealFlow meshes into Maya, and we will go step-by-step through the process of adding lights, materials and proper render settings to mimic appearance of realistic glass and liquid materials. From there, we will go deeper into the integration process, learning how to take geometry from Maya into RealFlow, using RealFlow's soft and rigid body dynamics to create moving objects, as well as understanding how scene scale plays a critical role in the behavior of our simulations. We will learn how to cache and re-use RealFlow simulation data and discuss many tips, tricks and techniques that you will be able to use in both the simulation and the rendering stages of your RealFlow projects.

This series of lessons will introduce us to the powerful software of RealFlow so we can begin experimenting and using it for our own projects. By understanding now how emitters, daemons and objects interact, we can create and control complex simulations.

The Hybrido fluid solver opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for fluid simulation within RealFlow, allowing us to solve millions of particles with relative ease. We will begin this course by learning how to set up specialized domains and emitters for our Hybrido fluids, as well as learning how these particles can be influenced by the RealFlow daemon nodes. From there, we will learn how splash particles can be used to add detail to our fluid bodies. We will also learn how mist and foam can be generated within our Hybrido fluids, adding details and levels of realism that were much more difficult to achieve with previous versions of RealFlow. Finally, we will learn how to generate meshes around our particles and how displacement maps can be created inside of RealFlow to add fine details to our meshes.

The RealFlow RenderKit is an extremely powerful set of tools for rendering RealFlow particle data directly within our primary 3D application. With the RealFlow RenderKit, we have the ability to control the size and shape of our rendered particles, we can increase or decrease the number of particles that are rendered, and we can also shade our particles based on RealFlow magnitude data. Using the RealFlow RenderKit, we can also generate meshes around our particles at render time, eliminating the need to mesh our particles inside of RealFlow. During this course, we will also discuss how RealFlow particles can be rendered as volumetric clouds, as well as learning how to import RealFlow displacement map sequences into Maya for Rendering.

In this process, we will learn how to set up nice and efficient RealFlow scenes and learn how to use daemons like magic, drag force, and age to set up particle morphing animations. In this exercise, we will go over how to fix different issues and greatly strengthen our problem solving abilities in RealFlow. This series of lessons is really only the first half of the setup and in the following project, you can learn how to light and render generated liquid meshes.

In this series of lessons, we will guide you through the process of using mental ray to realistically render RealFlow geometry within Maya. We will begin this process by learning how to import your mesh sequences from RealFlow into Maya and placing primary illumination sources. From there we will use the mental ray Architectural Materials to create realistic, refractive liquid, and discuss some very important settings to be aware of when using these shaders. Finally, we will create refractive caustic patterns that can add a high level of realism to the final render. Getting the proper look for your final renders will require a lot of troubleshooting and adjustments of many different attributes. Through these lessons, we will address many of these common problems that you will run into and how they can be resolved, allowing you to achieve the desired result in a much sorter amount of time.

Popular highlights include: Batch Scripts; Event Scripts; Custom Fluid; Scripted Daemon; Scripted Wave; GUI Elements; Scripting Reference; Python Modules; Functions; Variables; Loops; If Statements; Scene Global Variables; Menus and Toolbars; Archive on Simulation; Triangle Shatter; RF Mesh Import; Foam Emission; Vector Manipulation.

Popular highlights include: RealWave Overview; Creating RealWaves; Emulating Large Bodies of Water; Emulating Small Bodies of Water; Adding Fractal Waves; Adding Spectrum Waves; Adding Control Points Waves; Using Hypermesh; Custom RealWave Meshes; Controlling Object Buoyancy in Waves; Creating Foam Textures; Creating Wetmaps from RealWaves; Static Points; Particle Layer; Coastline Features; RealWave Object Properties; RealWave Particle Interaction; RealWave Particle Emission; RealWave Splash Emission; RealWave and Python Scripting.

Popular highlights include: Overview of Real Impact System; Dynamic Motion; Simulation Scale; Understanding Mass, Density, Volume; Collision Primitives; Pairs and Stacking Solver; Initial States; Initial Velocity and Rotation; Adaptive and Fixed Steps; Importing Dynamics; Animation Driven Simulation; RF Python Scripting; Liquid Simulation; Floating Rigid Bodies; Overview of All Constraints; Breakable at Force; Vehicle Setup with Constraints; Create Array; Measure Tool; Edit/Delete Message.

Popular highlights include: RealFlow User Interface; Exploring RealFlow's different particle emitter types; Using Global and Exclusive Links; Custom Waves; Dynamic Forces; Daemons; Groups; Surface Tension; Particle Interaction; Creating Realistic Splashing Liquid; Using RealFlow's Gas Particles; Importing Geometry into RealFlow; Soft and Rigid Body Dynamics; Exploring RealFlow's Elastic Particles; Using Hypermesh RealWaves to create open water like ponds and oceans; Generating Wetmaps; Exporting RealFlow meshes back into your primary 3D package; Export Central; Constraints; Organizing Simulation Files; Particle Mesh Generation.

Popular highlights include: Importing Geometry to RealFlow; Daemons; Advanced Mesh Generation; Keyframing in RealFlow; Particle and Mesh Loaders; Exporting Particles and Meshes; Scene Setup in Maya; mental ray Materials; Photons; Caustics; Particle Expressions.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Setting up basic Rigid Body interactions ; Changing the collision primitives ; Learning how to use Fluids to move Rigid Bodies. To learn more about RealFlow check out Scripting in RealFlow4, a comprehensive guide to creating realistic fluid effects and building rigid body simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Creating a basic Rigid Body scene; Setting up Rigid Bodies; Changing the Collision Side; Working with Elasticity; Using initial velocity to create an interesting simulation. For a complete overview of RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow 4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Learning how to best control object relationships ; Achieving nice results in RealFlow; Understanding that objects in the Global Link list interact with each other; Discovering that objects in the Exclusive Links panel will only be affected by objects categorized under them . For a complete overview of RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow 4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Learning the six killer daemons ; Keeping particles within a certain region; Removing velocity from particles for stabilization. For a complete overview of RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow 4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Learning how to save out a single BIN file; Exporting a BIN file out of another project; Simulating a single BIN file . Gain a complete understanding of RealFlow with Fundamentals of RealWave in RealFlow, a comprehensive guide to learning surface-based simulation.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Utilizing RealFlow's notify feature to send notification emails; Specifying the time-set for notification emails; Checking on long running simulations. For more information on RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Assigning expressions to our parameters; Making an object move in a prefect circle by using expressions; Utilizing the Curve Editor for optimal results. Learn more about RealFlow with Introduction to RealFlow4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Setting up a custom ground daemon; Learning how to use RealFlow's powerful simulations tools; Creating variables by writing Python scripts. For a complete overview of RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Exporting Adobe Illustrator objects for importing into Maya; Learning how to export geometry correctly in Maya for use in RealFlow; Using techniques for controlling RealFlow particles using geometry. For a complete overview of RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow 4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Importing objects into RealFlow ; Using a Volume Daemon to keep the scene clean ; Setting up the emitters and daemons that will create the water drop effect ; Surface tension and Magic daemons ; Creating a mesh from the particle simulation for exporting back into Maya . For a complete overview of RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow 4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Importing RealFlow geometry into Maya ; Getting soft shadows with an area light ; Creating a mental ray Dielectric Material ; Setting up mental ray caustics ; Image based lighting. For a complete overview of RealFlow check out Introduction to RealFlow 4, an in-depth guide to learning fluid and dynamic simulations.