-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 196
Alembic Export Support
Exporting to the Alembic (.abc) cache can be useful for archiving simulation data or for submitting jobs to render farms that do not support the FLIP Fluids addon.
The FLIP Fluids simulation meshes can then be exported through the Blender topbar with Blender > File > Export > Alembic (.abc).
When exporting to Alembic, the Blender Alembic exporter checks if there are any modifiers on the object to determine if the object is animated.
To export a fluid simulation as an Alembic cache, you will need to add a modifier to the fluid_surface object (and whitewater objects if applicable) so that they are recognized as an animated mesh. For example, a smooth modifier with 0 repeats can be used. In FLIP Fluids version 1.0.6 or higher, this is automatically set up upon the creation of a Domain.
Alembic export of a FLIP Fluids simulation is not possible in Blender 2.80 due to a severe bug in the Blender 2.80 release. Blender version 2.81 or later is required for Alembic export.
Important Note: To prevent crashes during Alembic export in Blender 2.81 or later, the Blender interface must be locked (Blender > Render > Lock Interface).
The resulting Alembic cache after export works well for importing back into Blender, but we cannot guarantee that this will work for importing into other software that use different standards for how the Alembic cache is structured. However, many users have had success in exporting a FLIP Fluids simulation to Alembic for use in other software.
A common problem with exporting FLIP Fluids whitewater meshes is that some third-party softwares cannot import this data properly. The Blender Alembic exporter does not support exporting particles or instances, so whitewater simulation meshes are structured as vertex-only meshes where each vertex represents the position of a whitewater particle. Some softwares do not recognize vertex-only meshes as valid geometry.
For render farms that do not support the FLIP Fluids addon, exporting to the Alembic (.abc) cache is necessary in order for the render service to load and playback the simulation data. An important note for rendering the Alembic whitewater cache is that you will need to set up the particle instancing manually. The whitewater Alembic meshes are vertex-only meshes where each vertex represents the location of a particle.
Blender Documentation for how to instance particles over an object vertices can be found here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/properties/instancing/verts.html