So I’m one of those guys that like to download the nightly builds, and generally I use the latest version unless there’s a reason not to, but on opening a project that has file and spending a couple of minutes scratching my head until I realised that the fire wasn’t there because the system has switched from the old Elbeem sim to mantaflow, it got me wondering what the best way / what everyone else does to ensure that they, or someone else opening their project is able to have everything work?
I guess it would be possible for me to leave a text file in the folder with the project with the blender version number…
I was surprised that Mantaflow became a target for 2.82 before OpenVDB primitive.
Currently, a simulation made before 2.82 is lost if opened in master.
Maybe they will create a compatibility fix to read previous OpenVDB cache from previous releases or a way to convert pointcache into Uni cache.
But actually, you have to rebake simulation in master.
Currently, settings are not preserved.
Smoke Domain is converted into Gas Domain. Smoke Flow is still a Smoke Flow. But their settings are defaults ; they are no more corresponding to what was saved in .blend file.
So, you have to reset each setting in physics tab.
With switch to mantaflow, UI is different but you are not supposed to lost a functionality. So, each setting existing in previous smoke simulation is still available.
So, your smoke Flow has its Flow Type set to Smoke like the default. You can change it to Fire or Fire+Smoke.