Please help with Realwave interacting with my object!

[tsn]

Hi Brandon,

I'm really happy to hear that you're starting to get what you're looking for. And yes, the graph-based solution is definitely not very fast, but at least it works The node that slows down the simulation is "FieldForceAdd". RF2015's ocean force daemon does something very similar, but faster of course, because it's multi-threaded and doesn't have to take a detour via a programming interface. Not sure if I forgot to mention that FieldForceAdd is also used to amplify the waves with its "scale" parameter.

I assume that you're talking about the "DisplayMesh" node from the graph, aren't you? These nodes are only here to show the spectrum wave's surface you create with the two green nodes. To be precise: they show the result from the "MeshPlane" nodes and the applied displacement. The interaction with the fluid is not considered here, because it's just something like a preview for adjusting the spectrum waves. You can/should deactivate them during simulation for speed's sake.

It can be used to visualize the splashes from the oil rig, but that's another story and won't accelerate your simulation.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Billabong]

Hello Thomas,

Sorry for the deylayed updates. Had other job priorites(gotta love deadlines).

After extensive talks with the boss and showing him how my simulation times were around 3 min per frame with 456 frames, evens out to around 22 hrs, which isn't bad, but deadline is getting closer, so we updated to 2015. I opened the Ocean force field scene and imported my oil rig, made a new ocean force field daemon and simulated. 200 frames took 24 min. I feel like it could be a little rougher but I think I'm on the right track.

Quick question. Should I lock the timeline and simulate for a few frames, so i don't have to wait on the domain to start looking like an ocean and then use that as the initial state or is there another way?

What are your thoughts on it so far?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOZaIba ... e=youtu.be


Thanks
-Brandon

[Billabong]

Looks like I spoke to soon with the initial state. I did as I wrote above, but once i unlock the timeline and make the domain and initial state and then simulate with the command line. Nothing gets simulated.

After further inspection, it seems command line doesn't work with initial state. If I simulate the viewport, the initial state is recognized.

-Brandon

[tsn]

Hi Brandon,

Good to hear that you finally got the results you're looking for. Unfortunately I can't watch the video, because it's tagged as private.

The initial state problem is something that pops up from time to time and I thought it's been fixed already. Sorry for the inconvenience. Anyway, did you check the "Use cache" option from Simulate (small triangle) > Command line options > Use cache. Maybe that's the reason? If not please let me know and I'll report it to our developers. Alternatively you can deactivate the viewport during simulation in GUI mode with Alt + D. This will also make the simulation some 30% faster.

In fact you cannot avoid that the daemon's force will need some time to act on the particles. You could try the following to get quicker results:

Ocean force daemon > Node Params > Ocean Force > Affect > Velocity

This modes will directly affect the particles' velocities, but you'll have to decrease "Strength" most probably.

Cheers,
Thomas

Edit:
If you don't want to share the video with others please send me a PM with a new link or a login

[Billabong]

Hey Thomas,

Sorry about that on the video. I think I fixed it. Can you try this link

https://youtu.be/FOZaIbaUV9E

Ill give the use cache option a try and see if that works. I just simulated the 456 frames and about to check it. if it looks ok, then I guess its time to move on to the Splash, then foam and then mist.

Not trying to get ahead of myself,but I thought I read somewhere , that you could use Fumefx with mist particles. Do you know anything about that?


Edit: Use Cache didn't seem to work

Thanks again

-Brandon

[tsn]

Thanks for testing out the "Use cache" option. I think there's a workaround for initial states and command line sims, but currently I can't remember the required steps.

I can also see the video now. It's looking good. The only thing is scale and IMHO the rig is too small. You also need a certain size to get enough interaction between the waves and the rig's columns. From the video I can't estimate the setup's dimensions, but when I compare the size of the camera with the old rig I get the impression that everything is pretty small. Or did you change the global scene scale? What you can do is to model everything at a real scale, e.g. with a 250m x 250m ocean segment, place the oil rig inside with a platform size of 30m x 30m (or more) and decrease global scene scale, e.g. to 0.25. This way you're able to keep relations, but everything will simulate much faster.

Here you have a database with dimensions and other specs for various oil rigs: http://www.deepwater.com/fleet/our-rigs-x738

Maybe this will help to adjust the real scales. You may also want to watch this video (start @ 0:29): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pmm9UKqc5I

The clip will give you a good reference for the relation between waves and rig. It's really poor quality and I know there's a better version out there, but I couldn't find it on the fly It's from the German movie "Die Sturmflut" and the fluid has been made by Scanline vfx in Munich.

To your question about mist: mist doesn't store any particles by default, but it's a volumetric density field. What you can try is to load the mist domain's OpenVDB into FumeFX. But I don't know if 3DS/FumeFX support OpenVDB, because I'm on Cinema 4D.

[Billabong]

Hey Thomas,

This was actually modeled to scale, but it is so huge, the clipping plane in realflow, prevent me from seeing it, so I took down its actual scale to .001 on all 3 axis. in Realflow.

I took your suggestion and I'm a little confused on the global scene scale. I apologize, i know this is probably getting frustrating for you, but am I doing this correctly? I opened up the scene scale options and changed them all to .25 and as you can see in my third viewport grab, its made my oil rig, very small in comparison to the domain. Just seems to me, that it will be a lot more particles to create in relation to the oil rig?







Thank you so much Thomas for being patient.

-Brandon

[tsn]

I see. The numbers and factors I've given in my previous mail were just examples, not real values. The actual numbers depend on your scene and I didn't know that you've scaled down the entire scene already. But this manual scale change along the XYZ axes is exactly the point.

The fact that you've scaled down the rig makes me believe that the model is from 3DS. The problem is that 3DS's own scale is between 10 and 100 times bigger than RF's scale (depends on your units). Hence the huge difference and the gigantic model. I'm not sure if the 3DS connectivity plugin has a scale compensation - C4D got this, for example. If yes, it's a good idea to make use of it. It's not so easy to suggest a straight-forward workflow here, but the rig is definitely too big.

You could try to scale down the rig in 3DS by 1/10th and import it to RF. Then change RF's "Geometry scale" - you've found this parameter already. Add the Hybrido elements, daemons, etc. Now you have the correct relation.

The idea is to modify the scene in way RF can handle it. Let's say your 3DS rig has a ground scale of 100 m x 100 m. The surrounding ocean would be something like 400 m x 400 m or even more. That's too much. So you use a geometry scale of 0.25 to make the rig (only internally for RF) 25 m x 25 m, and the ocean 100 m x 100 m. This is something you and RF can work with. When you bring everything back to 3DS you can work with the original dimensions (400x400 and 100x100) again.

It might be necessary to change "Daemon force scale factor" according to your geometry scale, but that's not 100% mandatory.

[Billabong]

Ok I see. So basically use the scene scale options instead of manually scaling it along the XYZ. Max's plugin does not have the scale option, atleast not that I have seen. Let me work something up as far as scale and see what I can get.

[Billabong]

Thomas,

When you have a sec, Can you take a look at this and tell me what you think? I think it may need to be a little rougher, but I'm not sure. Unfortunately I cant get any opinions from work because we are on break until the 4th.

Reference video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2dv57CpT-s


Simulation: https://youtu.be/CWv33H7a2zU

Thanks

-Brandon