Controller in Fluid Sims

Artwork Blender Tests
1

I put together a set of tests into a little vid - nothing very pretty ut illustriative and the conclusion was that my test method was poorly designed! The problem is that the controller is like a magnet, attractive or repulsive forces, and the fluid is like magically magnetic water! The results caught me off guard and its fun as it makes you think about abandoning your preconceptions - i.e I made a pump by mistake, :o OTOH its a start.

My next set of tests are trying to understand the strength and radius settings of the controller. I have no idea how the equations work, the falloff looks strange and its hard to decifer because of gravity.

Q’s what are radius units? Do they depend on world size? On detail size? On blender units? How do you transfer an effect as you scale a model?
The best hints I could get are shown here. The music kinda sums it all up!

Molding fluid with a controller object is rather like frosting a cake with a sledge hammer. It can be done, but only with great care. :rolleyes:

2

I finally got the animation of strength and radius values to work properly. The controller is in orange and is a solid ring within the wireframe walls of the glass (tumbler). Do not use planes for controllers, they must be solids or else anything along the -X axis won’t work right. The bar graph lets you see the IPO levels of controller Strength and Radius throughout the animation.

The goal of all this was to make a positive meniscus of fluid in a glass model. This is achieved here and I believe that this is the first time this has been documented using the Blender Fluid simulation. Watch in HD to see clearly:
uTub:


or Vimeo:
http://www.vimeo.com/13406773