No One Was Able To Make A Blender Tool Like This!

blender has come a long way in recent years with an arsenal of features that can even go head-to-head with the rest of the industry standard software however it is not always the case but why because one of the obstacles it still faces is in the VFX side of things and the quality of fluid simulation it produces I'm not saying it is bad but the reality is it still has a long journey ahead of it if blender want to challenge industry standard fluid simulation software especially hudini but there is one tool that has been helping blender users in the last few years and from what I have seen it is so Advanced compared to the other blender tools and as far as I know no one is trying to create something that is close to what it can do so what is this tool and what you should know about it to create amazing fluid simulations this tool I'm talking about is flip fluids but hold on I know that more likely than not that you have heard about it but hear me out because it has a nice story behind it the origins of flip fluids can be traced back to two individuals who modestly like to refer to themselves as two Ordinary People filled with motivation and inspiration Ryan guy and Dennis fast B poer became a force to be reckoned with in the blender community especially after they introduced the flip fluids add-on which was the first ever add-on they have actually created however the story didn't start there rather it All Began on YouTube of all places let me explain in an interview with blender Market Dennis recalled a time when he was searching for way to generate highquality fluids that contain White Water basically effects such as foam Bubbles and spray during his quest for inspiration he turned to YouTube in help of getting a spark of creativity and let's just say that fortune was on his side because the day after that he found Ryan and his impressive YouTube videos where he showcased a series of simulations that he rendered with blender after that Dennis decided to send an email to Ryan where he presented one of his previous work called the fracture modifier project followed by a Daren puzal to join forces and create a new add-on called flip fluids regarding the subject Ryan started that Jour that time he had just begun exploring blender and developing his own simulator as a hobby on the side as he stated I often read comments requesting that I replace blender fluid simulator or create an add-on it was obvious that there was a demand for an upgrade to the blender fluid simulation system but at the time I had no no interest in taking up this task the fluid simulator was just a hobby project for personal use and the idea of integrating it into blender seemed daunting then Dennis contacted me and he had the knowledge of blender that I did not have he had experience developing simulation tools and workflows and this is what gave me the motivation to start integrating the simulation system into the software this leid the foundation of the development of flip Floyd an add-on that allows us to create run and render liquid simulations within the software now you might say that we can create that already in blender which is correct so why flip fluids is different and this is what we're going to see skillshare is the largest online learning community with thousands of classes led by industry Professionals in film illustration design freelance productivity and more I think what skill share off for better than YouTube and other platforms is a way to know exactly what you want to learn and chart a path to do it and know exactly where you're going to end up at the end this not only saves you a lot of time looking around for different bits and pieces as Scavenging for tutorials but also saves you a lot of time headaches and money and with the new skillshare learning paths it is easier than ever to acquire new skills you can take multiple classes that resolve around one skill ensuring the best usage of your time with a handpicked curated list of classes aimed at students from all levels you can learn one skill in detail and go from a beginner to a pro for instance I recommend following these 3D models and animations with blender loading path where it gets you up to speed with modeling in blender in addition to texturing lighting rendering and animation so the first 500 people to click the link in the description will get a one month free trial on skillshare so what are you waiting for start investing in yourself today and pick a path that might change your life I like a lot of simulation add-ons in the market which are just based on the mlow simulation system of blender Philip fluid took the opposite Road by having its own simulation system and it custom sets of force fields and solve in a sense we can say it is its own little software within blender but to what extent in the blender de talk Forum Ryan guy stated I wouldn't say that the flip fluids add-on is better than mflow implementation or something that should replace mental flow flip fluids and mental flow both have strength and weaknesses and flip fluids has features not available in mlow and mlow has features that flip fluids does not have for example mental flow simulates both liquid and smoke fluid simulations while flip fluids focuses strictly on liquid simulation effects to add to that statement in terms of core differences flip fluids uses what they call an accurate viscosity solving method which takes into account sheer stress and the liquid surface which I'm pretty sure doesn't make any sense to most of us here so to not bore you with a physics class think of it as a way to simulate how fluids behave in real world circumstances based on the rules of physics such as neon loss of viscosity for example it can simulate honey without showcasing any signs of not realistic elastic effects that we can find in some CG software as for mental flow for blunder well there is a certain subjectivity to it I think the used method in flip fluids can produce more realistic fluid simulations just like how this user stated the flip fluids add-on is one of the best add-ons out there for blender currently and mental flow also uses a flip solver but I don't think it has incorporated what was used by flip flu with deaths which is an accurate viscous free surfaces for buckling coiling and rotating liquids now what does that mean for flip fluids well while some argue it can be done with Manta flow I think we can all agree that flip fluids is much more efficient solution to create large scale fluid effects and to generate millions of foam bubble dust and spray particles within our scenes in blender the use of high accuracy viscosity solver that we previously introduced is also an effective solution to simulate anything between really smooth liquids to thick fluids and everything else in between it can also simulate the natural cohesion of surface mus molecules in other words it's what causes fluids to drip for example or to add an elastic look to splashes it is also possible to choose between flip and Apex simulation methods and for reference the first one is good for large scale splashy simulations and the second an apic is good for small scale simulations in addition to many other features that make flip fluids arguably the best choice in the market to create any type of fluid simulations especially in blender such as splashes water interacting with objects and almost anything we can think of beyond the quality of the simulations themselves there are many aspects of this add-on which makes the user experience of creating fluids in blender much more enjoyable but to what degree let me just tell you the difference is day and night but before we get into that I I think it is important to highlight first that it fixes a fundamental issue that is associated with creating simulations in the software in a nutshell the simulation settings within blender are all over the place and across different interfaces and menus I mean just think about a case where you have to go back and forth between them it's not so much fun isn't it so having an add-on like flip fluids that regroups all the features into one menu such as the emitter and particle settings can always make a big difference despite how small that may seem besides it also offers a pause and resume baking feature baking in simple terms is the method in which a 3D software saves the results of a simulation and it does this in a hard drive to not calculate it each time while rendering it but it takes a lot of time especially on weaker computers so what this feature does as the names suggest is that we can pause the simulation when it is baking and resume it at any time we want even in the situation of blender crashing which we all hate or if you notice a mistake through the simulation for example you comp pause it and then resume the baking once you fix it without having to start from the beginning unlike vanilla blender flip fluids also comes with a simulator that can run in the background which allows blender to still be completely usable during the process and we can in the meantime work on other tasks for example setting up materials and lighting it also has what they refer to as an obstacle inverse workflow I know this sounds complex for no reason but basically it is a way to make any object perfectly contain the fluids without any leaks which can go from a simple pool or glass to pretty much anything else on top of that it has also debugging tools which are a set of built-in tools that we can use to visualize the simulation to better understand the simulation and to identify any potential issues with it such as low resolution it also has what is known as the command line tools and a sidebar menu basically according to the addons page the fastest and most stable method for baking and rendering especially huge amounts of simulation data in blender is through the command line which is a text based interface used for interacting with computers operating systems or software it is basically a computer science thing but the good news is that the add-on helps you with that and it helps you automatically set up and launch command line baking and rendering tasks even if you don't know much about it the add-on is also really documented with its own YouTube channel a video learning series and documentation Pages as well as example scenes and presets that come with the add-on after all we discussed I think we can all agree that flip fluids definitely took plender simulations to another level but is it enough is this a possible solution that can finally make blender able to take on an industry Titan such as Houdini for example well the short answer for this is unfortunately no don't get me wrong though it is a powerful tool but if you compare it to other software such as Houdini one of the most used software in the VFX industry and the go-to commercial software for major Productions it still falls short let me explain I think what makes software such as Houdini better can be divided into three sections first of all since it is a node-based software meaning that fluids can't be just limited to adjusting some settings in the menus that come with the software like flip fluids but you can build any complex simulation setups you want by combining nodes which are in simple terms small boxes that contain different settings and we can combine any number of them we want in any shape we want or form in other words it offers much more freedom and flexibility additionally Houdini has a much more complex particle system which is what fluid simulations are generally based on in VFX and in Houdini we can use different types of nodes such as wind settings to change the shape of the simulation of the particles however we like and the best reason is that it has better solvers to simulate fluids which we can cover in detail in another episode but for now flip fluids is an amazing tool that you have to use in blender if you need any fluid simulations and it is the best because it is used by thousands and thousands of artists who work in different domains like VFX commercials even AR and other Fields so if you like what you see and you want to create cool looking fluid simulations I highly recommend flip Floyds because right now it is the best and nothing even comes close to it if you are interested you will find all the necessary links in the description I hope you guys found this video useful and informative if you did please give it a thumbs up you can also check some of our previous videos thank you very much for watching and then we'll see you in the next one

Channel: InspirationTuts

Views: 20,516

Keywords: Blender, Flip Fluids, VFX, fluid simulations, Ryan Guy, Dennis Fassbaender, Blender world, Flip Fluids add-on, simulation system, Mantaflow, accurate viscosity-solving method, Newton's law of viscosity, FLIP solver, APIC simulation method, large-scale simulations, small-scale simulations, spray particles, simulation settings, particle settings, pause and resume baking, background simulator, debugging tools, Houdini, node-based software, fluid dynamics, 3D animation.

Id: pW9Aezhm7vE

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2024