Hi,
this should be a fairly easy one for the pros 
I need advice on how to setup my fluid simulation system so that I get a more realistic result. I read most part of the manual and watched several tutorials but somehow I seem to be missing something or my scene itself is the issue. I know that experimentation is key here and the reason and I spent some hours already fiddling with the settings, which thereof exist quite many but I am not progressing. Also, why I seek advice is because the simulations take extremely long as soon as you turn up the fluid resolution.
Blendfile at http://www.pasteall.org/blend/41438 (round 14MB, apparently too large to attach directly)
See the screenshot of my scene. The background that you see is a displaced plane which resembles a rocky hillside. I want to have delicate, realistic looking creeks of water flowing through its gaps. This is how far I came:
Right-hand picture shows a side view so you have a better idea how the scene is composed at the moment. The cube in the middle is the domain object, the spheres near the upper border of the left image are set as inflows.
There are two major issues that I would like to fix:
-
right now the water is “crumbling” down in a jittering manner, not resembling the continuous, delicate strands of water that I have in mind. How can I make the liquid more continuous and water-like?
-
there is a very noticeable gap between the obstacle and the liquid. I know that a common workaround is to duplicate the obstacle and translate it (further down in this case) and later hide it in the render. Also I could just translate the domain object (i.e. the fluid) and translate it after the bake. However, it seems the flow direction of the liquid is not guided by the obstacle’s bounds/gaps at all. In some areas the liquid is colliding into and going through the obstacle while in other areas it floats far above it. Is this because the obstacle’s surface is unsuitable for the simulator?
What I tried already (other than experimenting with the fluid / obstacle settings):
- Minimize the size of the domain to the minimum
- Apply all transformations of all the involved meshes
- Recalculate normals outside for the obstacle
- Highly subdivide the obstacle mesh before baking (which explains the large file size of the attached blend)
- Subdivide the liquid after baking (helps a little but does not resolve the overall cranky look and feel)
- Fluid resolution of the screenshot 65 (I went as far as 150 but it looked nothing better although taking really long to bake).
Some questions:
- Is this kind of obstacle maybe just not suited for the simulator when trying to achieve the result that I am going for?
- What can I do to make the obstacle more suitable while keeping it’s shape?
- Will highly increasing the fluid resolution help? To what values?
- Are any of the settings to blame? Which ones and how to adjust them adequately?
- Are there any workarounds or hacks that you can think of?
I will attach the blend file so you can have a look at the detailed settings. Any advice will be highly appreciated.
