RealFlow Official Forum

Hello,

I am doing this tutorial - http://blog.digitaltutors.com/realflow- ... d-systems/ and noticed a section on the "lock" vs. "unlocked" simulations and was a bit confused on how to do set an initial state with an animated object in the scene. If I run the simulation in "lock" mode, none of the data is saved, so if Realflow crashes, which it has twice now , I lose all the simulation data. But if I run it in "unlocked" mode the animation happens and the horse is at the top of the hill by the time the liquid is where I want to set the initial state.

So here is my question: What is the best way to set an initial state where you are able to chose a frame from exported data (which only happens in "unlocked" mode), while still freezing the animation in the scene (which only seems to happen in "locked" mode?

Hi,

This is a problem with Initials States that I had made a suggestion about some time ago, but so far they have not done anything about. The problem is when the time line is locked, the frames are not saved in cache. I've had the same problem that when I'm locking the timeline to get the simulation to the starting point I want, I lose everything if the program crashes.

And it crashes way too much!

I suggested a fix to this that I called Timeline Lock Cache...

http://www.realflow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=1163

They seemed open to the idea at the time, but I've not seen it in the new version as yet.

There's a couple of ways I get around this.

1. Every now and then, check your simulation and if it has not crashed yet, pause it, then save the current frame as an Initial State.

2. Create 2 versions of your animated objects. The first one is normal, but create another one where the animation is frozen on frame 1 of your animation. Give them both the same file name (Animation.sd) but save them in different locations.

Bring the frozen animation.ad file into Real Flow and run the simulation without Locking the Timeline. That way, all the progress will be saved in cache until it gets to where you want it. Save the frame as an Initial State. Close out of Real Flow then copy the original Animation.sd file over the frozen one. Open your scene file again and then you can start the simulation with your particles in the right place.

Good Luck.

Thanks for the input Oldcode! It does seem odd that there is not a way to simulate the fluid without freezing the animation in the scene (while saving your cached files).

I like your trick using two separate .sd or alembic files, that is a great idea, I will definitely try that. Thanks again for the input.