Aero simulations can be used to create effects like smoke, mist, and other gases.
Get started with aero
Here is a quick overview of the main steps for creating an aero simulation.
- Select one or more polygon mesh objects that you want to act as emitters.
The selected meshes will all use the same emitter properties (Continuous Emission on or off,
Temperature, and so on), but you can add other emitters later. See
Work with Bifröst emitters.
- Select
.
- In the main aero properties, you might need to adjust
Gravity Magnitude and
Air Density if the scene was not modeled to a scale of 1 centimeter = 1 meter. See
Bifröst simulations and scene scale.
- Play back a few frames and adjust
Master Voxel Size if necessary. You should use a value that's small enough to give a good sense of the overall effect in relation to the size of other objects in the scene, but still high enough for fast, low-resolution previews.
Note that the simulation updates with new settings only after you return to the first frame (by default, frame 1).
- Make sure that the emitter properties are set as desired. For example, turn off
Continuous Emission if you just want a single puff of smoke, and adjust
Density and
Temperature to match the substance you want to simulate. The default values work well for generic smoke.
If desired, you can paint
Density and
Temperature to have them vary across an emitter's surface. See
Paint Bifrost attributes.
- Add any other objects that you want to use to control the simulation. For example:
- Play the scene to preview the whole simulation. See
Preview a Bifröst simulation.
- Adjust attributes and preview again until you are satisfied with the overall motion at low resolution. In particular, some attributes in the main aero properties that you might want to tweak include:
- Smoke Threshold and
Smoke DIssipation to control how the effect fades off.
- Randomize Velocity to break up large, smooth flows and add visual detail.
- When satisfied with the overall motion, you can increase
Master Voxel Size for more detail in the FLIP simulation, or
Voxel Size Render Factor for more detail only in the render (see
Bifrost Resolution attributes. You can also adjust the
Particle Density for the
FLIP and
Render particles.
- Render the result. See
Render a Bifrost Simulation.
For smoother rendering, especially when particles spread out over a large volume, you can activate
Reduce Flow Noise in the
Particle Density Attribute group of the main aero properties.
- If desired, you can also: