MAKING OF:
‘Fluid Art – A Palm Tree’ Introduction Since the implementation of fluid simulation in Blender, I have been fascinated by the realism produced – it just looks right. In our common experience, we expect that a liquid will always move under the influence of all forces acting upon it, including gravity, until it finally reaches a stable state, if possible. A very curious thing about a waterfall, for example, is that the shape of the bend (due mostly to momentum and gravity) is static, while the flow is dynamic.
Fluid Art: the idea. What I had not seen among the various fluid simulation demonstrations online was something like a water fountain, where water would flow upward and fall back down, revealing a shape that water, otherwise at rest, would not have. A sophisticated fountain, I thought, would be intriguing with its increased complexity. A simple implementation of this in Blender would have:
54 If you visualize this, it is like a tree with a trunk and branches.
Starting point: how does a simulated fluid stream behave? At this point, what was needed was some specific information about the distance and the shape of the stream for a given fluid velocity. I did many experiments with one stream to find simple values of geometry and velocity. Here is a screenshot of satisfactory results, as viewed from the side. ( insert Fig002.png ) The inflow object was a cube of small size to make a narrow stream, having a Z-velocity of 1 (up) and an X-velocity of 1 (positive, to the right), and Y-velocity of 0. It is important to note two things: (1) the stream crosses the origin of the grid, whereas later, the origin will become the center of the circle of inflow sources; (2) the final domain resolution of the mesh needs to be as high as possible; I was able to achieve 200.
Several inflow objects
by Jack Harris
Each one with the same vertical inflow velocity (Z)
www.blenderart.org
Each one with a specific horizontal inflow velocity (X and Y) so that the total effect is interesting I decided to use sixteen inflow objects, arranged in a circle, as viewed from above, and direct the stream from each one up and toward the center. At the center, then, all streams would collide and stop moving in the horizontal direction, so that only vertical motion (down) remains.
Issue 16 | May 2008 - Wow Factor