Emit Bifröst foam using an adaptive camera

You can add an adaptive camera to control the amount of foam emitted into a liquid based on its distance from a camera. An adaptive camera lets you create high resolution foam simulations close to the camera where the detail is needed, while lowering the number of foam particles in other areas of the scene.

Add foam to your liquid and adjust foam emission before adding an adaptive camera to your simulation. For information about adding foam to a liquid and controlling foam emission, see Add foam to a Bifröst liquid and Control Bifröst foam emission.

Add an adaptive camera

  1. Create a new camera (Create > Cameras > Camera).

    You can also use an existing perspective camera.

  2. Select either the liquid or foam object.
  3. Select Bifrost > (Add) Adaptive Camera.
    In the Camera group of the bifrosFoamProperties node, the following occurs:
    • Clip to Camera Frustum is turned on.

      Particles now emit only in the area defined by the camera frustum.

    • Angle of View inherits its value from the cameraShape node.

Remove an adaptive camera

    To remove an adaptive camera, you can either:
    • Delete it from the scene.
    • Disconnect it from the main container's cameraShape input port in the Node Editor.

Control an adaptive camera for foam emission

Use the attributes in the Camera group of the bifrosFoamProperties node to control how the adaptive camera modifies foam emission. See Bifröst Foam properties attributes.

Note: When the camera position changes, the simulation at the start frame need to be recomputed. This may increase simulation time since Maya needs to recompute adaptivity and a full simulation step. To avoid this, you can temporary disable the liquid when positioning the camera at the start frame.
  1. To turn on the adaptive camera, set Adaptivity to a positive non zero value.

    This enables camera adaptivity and controls the particle emission rate drop-off based on the distance from the camera.

  2. Turn on Clip To Camera Frustum.
  3. (Optional) To display an outline of the frustum area in the scene, in the cameraShape node's Frustum Display Controls, turn on Display Frustum.
  4. (Optional) Adjust the adaptive camera's Angle of View. By default, the adaptive camera uses the cameraShape node's Angle of View.

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