Bifrost liquid simulation run too fast on real time playback

[Anonymous]

Hello, I am trying to run Bifrost liquid simulation. I already set the voxel, killplane, colliders, emitter, and everything. I also changed the gravity to 980 and density to 1, which I believe are the correct units for Bifrost liquid simulation. I also set the emitter to pour the liquid continuously. The problem occurs when I set the playback speed to real-time mode. They run too quickly (the particles just fall down within the 5th frame). But when I set the playback speed to play every frame, the particles run down normally. Why is this happening and how can I fix this? 

I am a Mac user. 

Playback on 27th frame, set to play every frame 

 Playback on 27th frame, set to real time 

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

For a correct simulation every frame needs to be evaluated.

If you force Maya to real time playback it skips frames if the playback is not fast enough, this breaks the simulation.

So for all dynamics and simulation stuff you need

a) "Play Every Frame", or

b) you need to cache the simulation first, then skipping frames is not a problem.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for the quick reply!

Can you explain how to "cache simulation"? I'm pretty new to Maya so I still don't quite understand the concept 😞

Also, do I HAVE to set the playback mode as Play Every Frame, and then hit render sequence in order to get the liquid in my rendered image? I'm trying to render at least 5 seconds of the simulation. From the sample render I've tested so far in Real-Time settings, the liquid just did not show up. 

This is when the frame was at 27 and the liquid did not show up. 

 

[mspeer]

Hi!

1) Bifrost Fluids > Compute and Cache to Disk...

2) If a frame is simulated it can be rendered, the playback settings do not have any effect on the rendering.

[aaronfross · Accepted solution]

The appropriate playback mode is "Play Every Frame, Max Real Time". You can set this easily by right-clicking the timeline. Every frame is evaluated, and the playback speed never exceeds your current frame rate.

In Maya, dynamic simulations assume a scene unit is a meter. Everything else assumes a scene unit is a centimeter, regardless of your Preferences settings. This is a big PITA. For best results, build your scene to 1/100th scale.

If your scene is built to 1:1 scale, then the measurements are in centimeters:

Gravity = 980 cm per second

Density = 0.001 kilograms per CUBIC centimeter

You will also need to increase the Master Voxel Size, otherwise your simulation will be super ultra detailed and take forever to calculate.