Covering the week of July 27th – 31st, 2020.
Hello and welcome to our 27th development update of the FLIP Fluids liquid simulation addon for Blender! Last week was my first week back from vacation, which was a well needed break and now I’m super energized to get back into development!
Last week’s work mainly involved catching up on what I’ve missed over the past three weeks away, but I still had some chances to fix a few issues in our experimental force fields features.
Blender Market Summer Sale
The Blender Market Summer Sale runs from August 3rd until Friday August 7th. During this time the FLIP Fluids addon as well as over 1000 other fantastic products will be available for 25% off!
Get the FLIP Fluids addon here
- 4400+ sales, 5 star rating, excellent value
- No subscriptions, all future updates included
- Try out our free demo! We’re sure you’ll like it 🙂
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- What is the difference between Blender’s Mantaflow FLIP simulator and the FLIP Fluids addon?
- Have any question? Do not hesitate to ask us on the Blender Market or at su*****@fl********.com!
Blender Market Donation Drive
During the last month of July, the Blender Market held a donation drive: Giving Month. During this month, Blender Market creators were encouraged to donate a larger portion of their revenue towards the Blender Development Fund.
We have received so much support from the Blender community all throughout the development of this project and we wanted to give back. Thanks to your purchases last month, we were able to donate a large amount to support the development of Blender.
We don’t have the exact numbers yet, but an estimate of $18,000 USD was raised through this Blender Market fundraiser, and an estimate $4,300 USD was generated just through FLIP Fluids sales alone! We’ll give you an update on the exact numbers when we see them.
Art Directable Fluids Experiment
Last week I had an idea for how to use our FLIP Fluids surface force field mode to help create art-directable dripping effects:
[gfycat data_id="pastbluebuckeyebutterfly"]This technique can be useful for when an artist wants to direct fluid to flow in a way that it matches a pre-defined shape (In this animation, the shape is the dark outline). The inspiration for this was from looking at patterns on ‘drip cakes’.
The technique works by creating a planar shape and adding it as a Surface Force object in the simulator. Surface forces generate a force field that attracts fluid towards the object’s surface. This is what makes the fluid flow and conform into the dripping shape.
Without force fields, this effect can also be done, but can require much more trial and error to get right. It can be simulated naturally by setting up the initial conditions of the simulation just right, such as inflow placement/flowrate and friction/adhesion.
There is a trade-off: simulating naturally takes more time to set up, but the result can end up with more detail and looks more physically natural. Using a force field is quick to set up with less testing and involves modelling a simple shape for the drip pattern.
I’ll keep experimenting with this technique. I’d love to try this on the famous Blender Guru Donut and provide an example scene.
Force Field Experimental Build v9.0.9.02
As I am back from vacation, force field experimental build updates can now resume! The latest version, v9.0.9.02 (Aug 25th 2020) is now available in the experimental builds package in the FLIP Fluids downloads on the Blender Market.
Release Notes
See this page for full release notes on previous versions.
- Added Domain bake operators to the FLIP Fluid toolshelf menu.
- Fixed error where some fixes mentioned in previous experimental release notes were not actually distributed in the releases.
- Fixed compatibility issues on MacOS systems
- Fixed bug that could cause a crash if viscosity feature was enabled while simulating small amounts of fluid.
- Removed Preserve Foam options from FLIP Fluid Whitewater UI. These settings were not working as expected and are no longer needed.
- Updated Documentation: Scene Troubleshooting: Fluid behaviour changes when increasing resolution.
- New Tutorial: Episode Eight: Layering Fluid to Make Delicious Sweets.
As usual the plugin is getting better and more powerful..
Simply amazing work FlipFluids Team
Cheers.