Fluid Sim Importer Plugin: Interface Snapshot

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Fluid Sim Importer Plugin: Interface Snapshot // SDK, Plug-in & 3rd Party Area

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Post by frootee // Dec 10, 2008, 8:11am

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Here's a snapshot of the interface in action.

The appearance may change of course.

You can have multiple fluids in the scene at the same time.

You can also reverse playback of individual fluids by selecting the fluid and choosing the Toggle Reverse button.

You can abort the render

You can choose start and end frames manually, or let Truespace Figure it out for you.

You can choose Realtime or VRay render.



hm...

maybe a pause button would be good too.

Post by prodigy // Dec 10, 2008, 8:43am

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Looking Good Froo :)

Post by Wigand // Dec 10, 2008, 11:21am

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awesome :jumpy:


Why is the fluid moving? Is something fallen in?

Post by hultek43 // Dec 10, 2008, 11:37am

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Looking good :banana:.

Post by Burnart // Dec 10, 2008, 11:45am

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Looks exciting! - well done.

I'll be rude enough to ask.. when will we be able to get our hands on it?

Post by robert // Dec 10, 2008, 12:40pm

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Very nice work! I would definitely like to use this when you've finished.

Post by frootee // Dec 10, 2008, 3:06pm

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awesome :jumpy:

Why is the fluid moving? Is something fallen in?

Hi Wigand.
This was just a huge blob of fluid falling inside the fluid domain, and basically splatting everywhere.

I'll have to check whether moving obstacles are supported in blender for fluid simulation. I think they are, though I have not tried animating an object in truespace, exporting that to blender, then running the simulation. That would be interesting. :)

Thank You everyone!

It should be ready soon. So far this has been built and tested in beta versions of 7.61 so I'll have to rebuild the interface for 7.6. But that won't take too long; just a couple hours. I was hoping to release it before Christmas but that may be pushing it.

Post by transient // Dec 10, 2008, 3:40pm

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I'll have to check whether moving obstacles are supported in blender for fluid simulation.


By the looks of the bottom video on this (http://www.xedium3d.com/tutorials/fluid/) page, they seem to be.


This is looking very nice, can't wait to see fluidsim renderered in vray.:)

Post by frootee // Dec 10, 2008, 6:14pm

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Groovy. Thanks transient. :)

Post by 3dfrog // Dec 11, 2008, 5:19am

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cool froo, can't wait til its done!

Post by frootee // Dec 11, 2008, 6:15am

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thanks frog.


I have updated the panel views; so for VRay we see the VRay render settings;

for Realtime, we do not. Makes it look cleaner. :)

Post by Maldrachen // Dec 11, 2008, 10:11pm

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great work, cant wait to have a play

Post by butterpaw // Dec 12, 2008, 11:41am

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Neat! .. good going Froo! ^_^

Post by frootee // Dec 12, 2008, 11:45am

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thanks butter!


The 7.6 port is now done; I have to test it with the 'real' Fluid Domain transform data from blender; then documentation.

Post by robert // Dec 12, 2008, 12:47pm

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thanks butter!


The 7.6 port is now done; I have to test it with the 'real' Fluid Domain transform data from blender; then documentation.


Sweet!!!


You watch, as soon as you put this up there will be a lot of downloads in a short time.:D

Post by frootee // Dec 12, 2008, 2:35pm

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That would be Sweet Robert!

I have the documentation underway. Not too much will be required really; I think there will be more involved in a tutorial for using blender.

Post by Emma // Dec 13, 2008, 3:01am

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.....be more involved in a tutorial for using blender.....


sorry if I have to correct: "...much much much more..." is what I would say and I know what I'm talking about since already rendered a fluid sim, and believe me I had to keep more than three fingers crossed and had to run up the hill more than three times to get it managed with the blender GUI

Post by frootee // Dec 13, 2008, 3:57am

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Thanks Emma.

I am writing a step by step guide for navigating the areas of the blender interface which are required. This first form is a Powerpoint presentation with pictures, and the text is minimal.

Post by transient // Dec 13, 2008, 4:12am

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I agree that the least time spent in Blender the better, but I'm sure once this comes out the learning curve can be managed.

Post by rjeff // Dec 13, 2008, 8:24am

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Froo pardon my ignorance/stupidity, but why would blender have anything do to with TS?

Post by frootee // Dec 13, 2008, 8:59am

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no problem at all jeff.

Blender has a fluid simulator. Truespace does not.

The plugin imports the fluid sim data files generated by blender.

Basically (and this is covered in the documentation / user manual I am writing),
you 'stage' the scene completely in truespace: You setup the fluid Domain
(a cube in which all the interacting objects are contained), the obstacles which will interact with the fluid, and the fluid itself. The fluid can be a simple shape, such as a sphere, or a character which melts. I believe the one requirement for a fluid object is, it must be a closed shape. These objects are then exported to blender. In blender, we load the objects, go to the fluid panels, and assign properties to each object: Obstacle, or Fluid. Then let it run. When complete, we return to truespace for texturing and animation rendering.

My goal is to maximize use of truespace, and minimize use of blender.

This and more will be covered in the user manual.

Post by Asem // Dec 13, 2008, 10:11am

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Were you able to tie the fluid sim objects imported into ts to work with ts's phys simulation?

I know normally you wouldn't be able to do that unless you account for it but if you did that would in a way make ts have something extra that blender sim doesn't.

Post by robert // Dec 13, 2008, 10:16am

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Were you able to tie the fluid sim objects imported into ts to work with ts's phys simulation?


I know normally you wouldn't be able to do that unless you account for it but if you did that would in a way make ts have something extra that blender sim doesn't.


I am gonna go with no as I'm trying to come up with something like that at some point. :p


As far as I know the imported sim will be a static object that will act independently of the rest of the scene, unless your brought the scene into Blender first and then ran the sim. Even then anything you change will have to be re-exported and simulated in Blender again.

Post by rjeff // Dec 13, 2008, 10:32am

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So I assume then you will have to have Blender installed? Also will this be an aoutomated process. I am sure this will be covered as well.

Post by robert // Dec 13, 2008, 10:52am

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So I assume then you will have to have Blender installed? Also will this be an aoutomated process. I am sure this will be covered as well.


Yes, if you want fluid sims.


As for automated, it will be insofar as it can. Meaning that all this plugin will do by itself is load your sim, other than that everything has to be done manually.


If you look at the UI on the first page it pretty much tells you everything this can do.

Post by Asem // Dec 13, 2008, 11:37am

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I suppose so. Even blender technically can't do what I'm asking which is to interact with the actual physics sim while the fluid sim is running ie. fluid sim calculations are dependant on the physics engine rather than it's own solver.

I find it strange that no one has done it yet at least the person who created the fluid sim. I thought he would have been able to tie it to blender physics. unless everyone is waiting for 2.5

Post by robert // Dec 13, 2008, 11:49am

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I think what it is is that since Blender uses something unique, LBM or El'Beem (http://elbeem.sourceforge.net/), and it hasn't be finalized with non-static object interactions.

My idea was to do something with particle simulations and maybe also grid method for tS, at the moment I'm doing research. Although I don't have much time to work on implementation so if someone else wants to start on something here is what I found.

A few key resources I've found/am using are:
http://animationphysics.wordpress.com/
http://graphics.ethz.ch/~thuereyn/ntoken3/Publications.html
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/labs/infographie/papers/Clavet-2005-PVFS/pvfs.pdf
http://www.cfd-online.com/Links/
and probably
http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/arvo/vmml/admin/upload/Solenthaler_sca08.pdf

And there is a bunch of books, although how helpful they will be I don't know:

An introduction to computational fluid dynamics - Versteeg

Basics of Fluid Mechanics and Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics - Petrila Trif

Computational Fluid Dynamics - Principles and Applications - J. Blazek

Computational Fluid Dynamics - T. Chung

Computational Fluid Dynamics for Engineers - Tuncer Cebeci

Computational Fluid Dynamics Vol.I - Hoffmann

Computational Fluid Dynamics Vol.II - Hoffmann

Computational Fluid Dynamics Vol.III - Hoffmann

Computational fluid dynamics. The basics with applications - Anderson J D

Computational Fluid Mechanics And Heat Transfer - Tannehill Anderson Pletcher

Computational Methods for Fluid Dynamics - J. Ferziger, M. Peric

Computational techniques for fluid dynamics Vol.1 - Fletcher C.A.J

Computational techniques for fluid dynamics Vol.2 - Fletcher C.A.J

Computational Techniques for fluid dynamics Solutions Manual - Fletcher C.A.J

Discontinuous Finite Elements in Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer - Ben Q. Li

Finite Element Method - Fluid Dynamics - Zienkwicz and Taylor

Fluid Dynamics - Theory, Computation, and Numerical Simulation - C. Pozrikidis

Fundamentals of Computational Fluid Dynamics - Lomax, Pulliam

Fundamentals of the finite element method for heat and fluid flow - Lewis Nithiarasu

Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics - Date Anil

Mathematical Models of Fluid dynamics - Rainer Ansorge

Navier-Stokes Equations Theory and Numerical Methods - Rodolfo Salvi

Numerical Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow - Patankar

Principles of computational fluid dynamics - Wesseling P

Screw Compressors 3D CFD and Solid Fluid Interaction - Kovacevic Stosic and Smith

Turbulence modeling for CFD - Wilcox D.C

Since it will have to be made using the tS SDK I'm going to be doing it in C++. Since I know a guy who does Java versions and the languages are similar I'm looking for his help.

His stuff: http://kotsoft.googlepages.com/

If you get the .class files from his Java applets and decompile them with Cavaj (http://www.bysoft.se/sureshot/cavaj/) you can see how he coded those.

Post by frootee // Dec 13, 2008, 11:54am

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well, trueSpace physics interaction is on my To Do list, but I had to draw the line somewhere.


Physics simulation between the fluid sim objects and objects in truespace is possible; it will have to be done with scripting. There are physics script commands which allow us to integrate over a time period. So, if two objects collide, and that is detected by the physics engine, a script would calculate an impulse over a short period of time, and use that power to move the objects. This process would repeat. A timer would be required, or some other timing method. (See why it's only On The List at this point? Thar's some thinkin Too Dooo :D ) but it is possible. It will just take some thinking and experimentation.

The script commands should be already available in the SDK documentation.

Check the IRiPhysics class.


Yes rjeff, blender will need to be installed to access its fluid simulator. Modelling, texturing, and animation will be done in truespace. Your models will be exported to blender, where the fluid simulation work is performed. Then back in truespace, you load the resulting fluid meshes. This process will be covered in the documentation. :)

Post by robert // Dec 13, 2008, 12:01pm

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...Check the IRiPhysics class....


That helps, I also have the Developer guide although that's probably all essentially in the SDK documentation.


I will get to work on this over the Winter break provided not too much is planned, fortunately this is also my Extended Essay topic so anything I get done here would help towards that as well. :)

Post by frootee // Dec 13, 2008, 3:15pm

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oh btw I believe the LBM approach is a hybrid between the Navier-Stokes and grid algorithms.

Physics interaction in trueSpace will be a post-process type effect, since the fluid meshes have
already been created.

If the interface looks simple, it was meant to be. Just wait till you see what's under the hood though (if you're so inclined). :D
My goal was to make use of this as simple as possible i.e. ensure users would never need to venture into the Link Editor (LE)
unless they choose to do so, to learn how the thing works. The plugin (RSX; i.e. DLL) converts the files to RsObj format.
The panel does the rest; the user just has to select the directories where fluids reside, add textures, and render the frames.
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