Updated to version 1.8.0

version 1.8.0 (May 21 2024)

• FLIP Fluids 1.8.0 is an update to make whitewater point cloud rendering a default, as well as add improvements and bug fixes.
• Video Overview: Coming Soon!
• Compatibility Notes:
  • FLIP Fluids 1.8.0 is officially supported in Blender 3.1 to Blender 4.1.
  • Blender 4.2: At this moment, Blender 4.2 Alpha contains known issues that may cause the addon not to be fully functional in this version and may break Blend files saved in this version (Blender 4.2 Support).
• Change: Whitewater simulation meshes are now initialized to render using the Point Cloud object type by default instead of the older particle instancing system.
  • Features related to setting up whitewater particle instancing have been removed. Blender’s Object Properties > Instancing system may be removed in a future version of Blender in favor of using Geometry Nodes for instancing.
  • Point Cloud rendering is currently not supported in EEVEE. For rendering whitewater in EEVEE, enable the whitewater geometry nodes modifier to use particle instancing instead of point clouds. However, rendering a large amount of particles in EEVEE can be very slow and use more resources compared to the Cycles render engine. (Documentation).
  • Blend files created using older versions of the FLIP Fluids addon will be automatically updated to use point cloud rendering, if not already set up.
  • For the most up-to-date FLIP Fluids geometry node modifiers, these will only be automatically applied to new Blend files created in FLIP Fluids 1.8.0. To update older Blend files, delete any FF_MotionBlur modifiers, save the Blend file, restart Blender, and reload the frame to re-initialize the modifiers.
• Change: Preferences > Tabbed Domain Settings is now enabled by default (Documentation).
• Change: Preferences > Autosave Blend file before launching command line operators option is now enabled by default (Documentation).
• Change: The FLIP Fluids Sidebar > Geometry Node Tools > Remove Motion Blur operator has been removed as it is no longer relevant. Instead, and ON/OFF toggle has been added to quickly toggle motion blur rendering on or off. (Documentation).
• UI: Preferences menu is now organized into tabbed categories (Documentation).
• UI: General UI and organization improvements.
• Bug Fix: Fixed issue where the force field antigravity feature could result in surface mesh artifacts.
• Bug Fix: Fixed issue where whitewater materials may not be correctly transferred to geometry node modifiers initialized by the addon.
• Bug Fix: Fixed error that could be triggered during Bake + Batch Render operator that could result in the process finished alarm not to be triggered.
• Bug Fix: Fixed issue where an error could be triggered during render that could prevent keyframed motion blur scale from being applied.
• Bug Fix: Fixed issue where fluid particle speed and/or vorticity attributes may not be loaded into the fluid particle mesh.
• Bug Fix: Fixed icon missing error due to the Geometry Nodes icon not being available in Blender 3.2 or earlier.
• Bug Fix: Fixed issue where the Turbo Tools command line menu was missing from the UI when an installation Turbo Tools Addon by 3d illusions was detected (Documentation).