Online Docs : Render Effects Tab

By selecting different render effects you can change how Fluid looks in dramatic ways. This is what makes Fluid so customizable. Each of the effects is seperate from the others and none are mutually exclusive. It's up to you to customize Fluid to your tastes.

Contour Lines & Contour Filling
These options allow the rendering of objects that are much like contour lines on a topographic map. There will be a contour line for each color handle that you have in your colormap (defined in the Color & Resolution tab).

Color Grade
This is the most common type of render effect—and the one that Fluid uses as a default. It colors the liquid medium per the velocity at that pixel on the screen. You can also apply some additional effects to the color grade option. First of all, you can shade it by selecting the "3D Shading" option. This will create specular highlights and shadows on the liquid to make it look more three dimensional. When you enable shading you will have a selection of material types for the liquid and an option for "globbing" the liquid. When globbing is enabled the liquid will form in small clusters or nodules as it flows—much like mercury does.

Surface Material

• Plastic – you won't see any reflections and the highlights and shadows will be seem fairly smooth.
• Metallic – you will see reflections on the liquid. The reflection map popup can now be used to select the image that will appear in the reflections.
• Glassblocks – On some graphics cards (Radeon 8500) there will be an option for a glass-block material. This looks best at resolution 64 and has a very nice effect. You will also be able to select a reflection map when this is enabled.

Force Vectors
Force Vectors will render as small pointers at each of the model's grid locations. The direction of the vector corresponds to the direction of the liquid medium and the length and color of the vector correspond to the velocity of the liquid at that point. You may choose to reverse the colormap for the vectors to better see them against some color backgrounds or if you have colorgrade effects turned on also.

Particles
Particles offer some very interesting effects for Fluid. At this point we have a group of particle emitters in the center of the screen. These emitters will constantly shoot out particles that will be swept up by the current of the fluid and will be colored based on their age. The Coloration popup menu allows you to change the way the particles are composited over the background and can dramatically change the way a particle system looks. The Particle Count slider gives control over the number of particles that will be alive at any one time from each emitter. Particle Size is quite self explanatory.

Streaklines
Streaklines are a close cousin of Force Vectors. The main difference between the two is that streaks will stretch, flow, and bend with the current, whereas vectors remain stationary. Also, you may include an arbitrary amount of streaklines regardless of Fluid's grid resolution. The amount of streaks is controlled with the Count slider. The maximum length of the streaks is controlled by the Length slider.

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