Realflow 2012

This week I have been learning and testing using Realflow. I managed to download the free trial which is only valid for thirty days. This means I have had to learn very quickly and find my way around the program so I can start testing with it.

As it was only a free trial, there are a lot of limitations with it. For example, I can import objects into it from Maya to set my scene but I cannot export the simulation data to add the my maya scene to render it.

I began by using the container of the particles to make a basic seabed shape to see how the particles reacted. When using real flow, the particles are have to be emitted from an object, I could not find a way of just creating a body of water in a position. When the particles were emitted from the object, they fell to the bottom of the container but then bounced and did not react how I expected.



This did not make it look like a river at all and meant that the particles would just bounce around my scene.

I started again but this time, instead of using a container to b the river bed, I created a simple one in Maya. I then had to import this into realflow. This changed my method as instead of creating a small container for just the water, I created a large container to fit my mesh as well. I then had to do the same as before and create an object to emit the particles from. The results I achieved this time were a lot better than the first attempt.



This test was a lot more successful and made me think that using realflow could be a big possibility. I tried to then export the particles to Maya so I could render it properly to see how it looks but this was where the issues lay.

The trial does not let you export simulation data so I could not render it properly. This would be a bit issue for our film as we would definitely not be able to get away with using the free trials. This would mean having to purchase it which was over £100 for a student license.

It could be a good investment if it does everything that we want it to do but there was no way of going any further with the testing as you cannot export to Maya and therefore not animate anything going through the water to test to see if it worked.

It would work really well as a last resort as it is clearly going to work for the still water scenes and the particles react really well and naturally. I would have loved to have tested this further but I could not afford over £100 especially if we had decided not to use it. It also meant that no one else would have been able to do the animation during the river scenes as I would have been the only one to purchase the license.