The Output Mesh attributes allow you to control the resolution, smoothness, and speed of fluid to polygon mesh conversions.
Specifies the type of polygon mesh used to generate the output mesh iso-surface. By default, Mesh Method is set to Triangle Mesh.
Use this attribute to adjust the resolution of your fluid output mesh. Setting the Mesh Resolution to a low value allows you to quickly render fluid effects for partial previews. Higher output resolutions produce finer detail in the fluid, but increase rendering time. This attribute affects both the interactive display of surface style fluids, as well as the quality of the fluid to polygon mesh conversion.
Mesh Resolution does not affect the quality of the native fluid node render. Higher resolution values better resolve effects such as opacity texturing of the fluid. In addition, the higher resolution sampling takes advantage of the smooth render interpolation method when the method is enabled.
Specifies the amount of smoothing applied to the output mesh. Smooth iterations change the length of the triangle edges, making the topology more uniform and generating a smoother iso-surface. The smoothness of your output mesh increases with increased Mesh Smoothing Iterations values, however, calculation time also increases.
When on, color per-vertex data is generated when you convert a fluid object to a polygon mesh.
To generate color per-vertex data for your fluid output mesh, either set a color grid or map color using a Color ramp. See Color.
When on, opacity per-vertex data is generated when you convert a fluid object to a polygon mesh. The per-vertex data is stored in a color set and can be visualized by making it the current color set of the mesh, or used with the mental ray Vertex Colors texture. See Opacity.
When on, incandescence per-vertex data is generated when you convert a fluid objects to a polygon mesh. The per-vertex data is stored as a color set and can be visualized by making it the current color set of the mesh, or used with the mental ray Vertex Colors texture.
To generate incandescence per-vertex data for your fluid output mesh, make sure you must have valid inputs to an Incandescence ramp. For example, if Incandescence is mapped to Temperature, and there is no temperature grid for the fluid, you will not get incandescence values. See Incandescence.
When on, velocity per-vertex data is generated when you convert a fluid object to a output mesh. Velocity per vertex is derived from the internal mapping of fluid velocity values to R, G, and B color values. You can use velocity per-vertex data to create motion blur in the rendered fluid output mesh.
Velocity per-vertex data is passed to the output mesh by way of the polySurfaceShape node's color set named Motion Vector Color Set. By default, this color set is set to the velocityPV data generated from the fluid object.
When on, UVs and a UVW color set are generated when you convert a fluid object to a polygon mesh. The texture coordinates let you map a texture to the surface of your output mesh. See Converting fluids to polygons.
You may need modify the meshes' UV topology to get the desired placement of the texture on the mesh. You can view and edit UVs using the UV Texture Editor. For more information about UVs, see Mapping UVs and UV Texture Editor overview.
If the Coordinate Method is set to Grid (Textures section of the FluidShape node), the UVW values move with the flow of the fluid. Otherwise, are like a fixed project based on the fluid bounds.
Turn this attribute on to make the normals on a fluid output mesh smoother. When on, user normals are created for the output mesh. The normals are based on the direction of the opacity gradient within the fluid volume at the vertex.
This setting does not affect the interactive display of surface fluids, which uses the gradient normals. When turned off, the output mesh normals used for rendering are derived from the angles between triangles, which can result in relatively sharp edges where thin triangles are present.