Glu3d

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Glu3D is a complete plugin system developed by 3daliens inc. that simulates fluid effects inside Autodesk's 3dsmax and Maya. Glu3D uses particles to simulate the liquid behavior, and a multi-resolution polygonal surface can also be generated to display the fluid surface.

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[edit] Simulation

A Vermouth simulation made with Glu3d for 3dsmax.
A Vermouth simulation made with Glu3d for 3dsmax.

Glu3d uses SPH, or Smoothed particle hydrodynamics to solve fluid simulations. That means Glu3d uses particles to simulate the fluid, which are affected by any forces, such as gravity, wind, and others, as well as geometry, which can be added to the simulation as well. Several adjustments can be made for the collision geometry. Glu3d can have different Friction, Adherence, Bounce and Collision GAP values to each object.

[edit] PWrapper

PWrapper is a polygonal mesh surface generator that works both with glu3D particles, particleFlow particles and Standard 3ds max particles. Once in your scene, it is possible to select any standard particle source, and Pwrapper will generate a polygonal surface mesh surrounding the particles in realtime (no disk cache needed, unlike the Glu3d Main Node's Mesh.). Some parameters accessible through pwrapper's command panel help to modify mesh surface look. This plugin helps to give a liquid behavior to any particle set with no need to wait for inter-particle interaction calculation times. That makes pwrapper a very convenient tool for animators that want to make cg fluids without physical accuracy.

[edit] Wetmaps

An 3dsmax scene, made with Glu3d using Wetmaps.
An 3dsmax scene, made with Glu3d using Wetmaps.

Glu3d is also able to generate Wetmaps. Wetmaps are image sequences that represents the liquid raster when glu3D substance is in contact with objects. Those map sequences can be used as a dynamic mapping for the colliding geometry to simulate the wet surface of the object. The generated map is a grayscale image that is similar to an opacity map. The white parts represent wet areas, touched by the fluid, while black parts are dry areas, with no particles colliding with it. Wetmaps, if enabled, are generated in a per-object basis, which means that every object has its own wetmap sequence, that is created based on the objects UV Mapping

[edit] External links