Helper Menu Settings

FLIP Fluids Sidebar Helper Menu
- How can I find the Blender Sidebar?
Helper Menu Operators and Settings

FLIP Fluids Sidebar Helper Menu

The FLIP Fluids Sidebar Helper Menu contains helpful operators and settings to enhance your workflow. The Helper Menu can be found in the FLIP Fluids tab within Blender's sidebar area.

flip_fluids_sidebar

How can I find the Blender Sidebar?

The Blender Sidebar area is part of the 3D viewport. Expand the sidebar area with the hotkey N or click this small arrow icon in the upper right corner of the viewport:

expand_sidebar_icon

Helper Menu Operators and Settings

This section will detail the operators and settings of the FLIP Fluids Helper Menu.

Bake Simulation
Add/Remove Objects
Select Objects
Organize Outliner
Command Line Tools <- (Highly Recommended!)
Measure Object Speed Tool
Geometry Node Tools (Initialize Motion Blur)
Beginner Tips
Disable Addon
Viewport Display Operators
Simulation Playback
Technical Support Tools

Bake Simulation

The bake simulation operators (Start, resume, and reset simulation) are a copy of the bake operators and resolution setting found in the Domain Simulation panel, multithreading settings found in the Domain Advanced Settings panel, cache directory location and operators found in the Domain Cache panel, and the render output location. This section of the Helper Menu is handy if you want to control your simulation baking without having the domain object selected!

Cache and Render Output Operators

_{Set Relative to Blend}	_{Set the render output directory relative to the Blend file to a location named render_[blendfilename]. This render output folder will be located in the same directory as your saved Blend file.}
_{Set Prefix as Filename}	_{Set the prefix name of the image sequence files match the Blend filename with a trailing underscore. For example, if your Blend file is named my_first_simulation.blend and is set to render PNG images, the sequence will be output as my_first_simulation_0001.png, my_first_simulation_0002.png, my_first_simulation_0003.png, ...}
_{Cache and Render Output Decrease/Increase version}	_{Increase or decrease the version suffix to both the cache directory and render output directory. These operators are equivalent to using the -/+ operators on both of the cache and render output directories. Note: these operators will not rename an existing cache or render output directory.}

Prepare Geometry Tools

This section contains an operator to help automate the process of preparing a collection of complex geometry for use in simulation, such as collections from Blender Kit for example. The FLIP Fluids Remesh Collection operator optionally converts all objects in a collection to the Blender Mesh type object, applies object modifiers, joins the objects into a single mesh, and finally adds a Remesh Modifier to generate a single manifold mesh.

Learn how to effectively use this feature in our Mastering Geometry Import episode (Timestamp 10:36).

FLIP Fluids Remesh Collection operator options:

_{Convert Objects to Mesh}	_{Automatically convert non-mesh type objects in the active collection to a mesh type if applicable. If an object cannot be convert to a mesh (empties, armatures, etc.), the object will be skipped from the remeshing process. If disabled, non-mesh type objects will need to be manually converted to a mesh or excluded from the viewport (disable outliner monitor icon) before proceeding with the remesh process.}
_{Apply Object Modifiers}	_{Automatically apply modifiers to objects in the active collection. If disabled, objects with modifiers will need to have their modifiers applied manually or excluded from the viewport (disable outliner monitor icon) before proceeding with the remesh process. Important Note: Modifiers may not be applied in the intended order and objects with complex modifier dependencies may need to be applied manually for accuracy.}
_{Skip Hidden Render Objects}	_{Skip remeshing objects in the active collection that are hidden from the render (outliner camera icon).}
_{Active collection (info)}	_{This UI section will display the name of the actively selected collection in the outliner.}
_{FLIP Fluids Remesh Collection (operator)}	_{Running this operator will combine object geometry within a collection and remesh into a single manifold object for use in the simulator. Optionally convert non-mesh objects to mesh, apply modifier, and skip object hidden from the render. Saving is recommended before using this operator - this process may take some time to compute depending on the complexity or amount of the input geometry.}

FLIP Fluids Remesh Collection note and tips:

Saving is recommended before using this operator. Depending on the complexity of the input geometry and amount of geometry, converting the meshes, applying modifier, and remeshing may take some time and cause Blender to hang.
To refine the detail of the remeshed object, the Voxel Size on the object Remesh Modifier can be lowered to increase the detail and polycount. Note that lowering the voxel size by too small of a number may result in long processing times.
Not all types of geometry inputs may be suitable for using in this remeshing operator. Depending on the situation, the only solution may be to remodel the object manually.
- Modifiers will be applied to each object before joining which creates a single mesh. If modifiers are required for the animation of the object, this operator will not capture this type of animation.
- If the collection contains objects that have deformable animation, such as a character animation with an armature, this operator may not capture this type of animation accurately.
- If the collection contains a large amount of planar geometry, such as a tree with many leaves, the Remesh Modifier may not be able to process the geometry in a reasonable amount of time or may run out of system resources.
Related topics:
- Obstacle Object Requirements
- Manifold Meshes - Information about correct manifold geometry, how to analyze and detect geometry issues, and how to debug and visualize issues with objects.
- Complete Guide Episode 5: Mastering Imported Geometry - All about working with geometry in the FLIP Fluids addon.

Add/Remove Objects

This set of operators will help you create a domain object or add all selected objects as a FLIP Fluid simulation type. If you have many objects that you want to set as a FLIP Fluid object type, use these operators so that you will not have to set each object one by one.

_{Create Domain}	_{Generate a domain object depending on the context of what objects are selected and what type of objects you have in your scene. See additional notes below for more information on how the domain will be created.}
_Obstacle	_{Add all selected objects as an Obstacle type object.}
_Fluid	_{Add all selected objects as Fluid type objects.}
_Inflow	_{Add all selected objects as Inflow type objects.}
_Outflow	_{Add all selected objects as Outflow type objects.}
_Force	_{Add all selected objects as Force type objects.}
_Remove	_{Remove all selected objects from the FLIP Fluids simulation.}
_{Delete Domain}	_{Delete selected domain objects and remove simulation meshes. This operator will not delete the cache directory. This operator is recommended for deleting domains as deleting within the viewport may leave behind stray child objects such as simulation meshes.}

Create Domain Operator (Additional Notes)

The 'smart' Create Domain operator will generate a domain object depending on the context of what objects are selected and what type of objects are in your scene. Here are the specific details for how this operator will generate your domain:

When no objects are selected:
- If there are FLIP Fluid objects in your scene, a new domain object will be created to contain all of these objects
- If there are no FLIP Fluid objects in your scene, a new empty domain will be created
When one object is selected:
- If the object is already set as a FLIP Fluid object type, a new domain object will be created to contain this object
- If the selected object is not set as a FLIP Fluid object, and this object is a valid domain shape (Cube/Rectangle, aligned to X/Y/Z axis), this object will be converted into a domain object
- If the selected object is not a valid domain shape, this object will be converted into an Inverse Obstacle in wireframe mode and a new domain will be created to contain this object
When multiple objects are selected:
- A new domain will be created to contain all selected objects
More Notes:
- This operator will only be available if there is no domain object set in the .blend file
- When objects are selected, this operator will only consider objects that possible to use as a simulation object (Mesh, Empty, or Curve type objects). A camera or light source type object would not be considered a valid simulation type object and would be ignored, for example.
- Helpful feature: If there are FLIP Fluid objects present in your scene that are too small to show up on the simulation grid (See this topic), the domain resolution will be automatically increased so that the smallest object will have enough grid coverage.
  - This is just a simple method that uses the object's bounding box and works best on basic geometry (ex: icospheres, cubes). This feature may not work as well for more complex geometry and is unable to detect thin-walled objects in many cases.

Object Display

Use these operators to quickly toggle between solid or wireframe viewport display for an object.

Example usage: FLIP Fluid Obstacle objects are displayed in solid mode by default, but if your object is set as a fluid container using an Inverse Obstacle, you might want to see the fluid inside of this object. Simply click the Wireframe operator to quickly toggle the object's viewport display to wireframe mode!

_Solid	_{Set the viewport display of all selected objects to solid mode.}
_Wireframe	_{Set the viewport display of all selected objects to wireframe mode.}

_{Show Render}	_{Enable the render visibility display of all selected objects.}
_{Hide Render}	_{Disable the render visibility display of all selected objects.}

Select Objects

Use these operators to quickly select FLIP Fluid simulation objects or simulation mesh objects. If you have a large simulation or a heavy scene, the viewport can become laggy and responsiveness of selecting objects in your scene can suffer. These operators will select these common objects faster than selecting by hand in the viewport. Being able to select the simulation meshes quickly will be helpful for setting materials, for example.

select_objects

_Domain	_{Select the simulation Domain object.}
_Obstacle	_{Select all Obstacle type objects.}
_Fluid	_{Select all Fluid type objects.}
_Inflows	_{Select all Inflow type objects.}
_Outflows	_{Select all Outflow type objects.}
_Forces	_{Select all Force Field type objects.}
_Surface	_{Select the fluid surface mesh (fluid_surface).}
_Foam	_{Select the simulation foam mesh (whitewater_foam).}
_Bubble	_{Select the simulation bubble mesh (whitewater_bubble).}
_Spray	_{Select the simulation spray mesh (whitewater_spray).}
_Dust	_{Select the simulation dust mesh (whitewater_dust).}

Organize Outliner

Use these operators to quickly organize your FLIP Fluid objects and simulation meshes into separate collections (or unlink objects from these collections back into a flat list).

organize_outliner

_{FLIP Objects to Collections}	_{Organize all FLIP Fluid simulation objects into separate collections based on the object type.}
_{Unlink FLIP Object Collections}	_{Unlink all FLIP Fluid simulation objects from their organized collections and place into a flat list within the default FLIPFluid collection. This operator will not delete any objects.}
_{FLIP Meshes to Collections}	_{Organize each generated fluid surface and whitewater meshes into separate collections. Useful for quickly creating separate view and render layers for the simulation results.}
_{Unlink FLIP Mesh Collections}	_{Unlink all fluid surface and whitewater meshes from their organized collections. This operator will not delete any objects.}

Command Line Tools

These are our favorite tools! The most stable way to bake and render a simulation or scene in Blender is through the command line. Rendering through the command line prevents nearly all bugs and crashes related to rendering in Blender. Baking and rendering from the command line bypasses the need for Blender to load and manage the viewport and graphical interface. This reduces RAM usage and improves stability since potential conflicts with the interface are eliminated. Baking and rendering from the command line can also be faster!

However, if you are not familiar with the command line, this can be intimidating or complicated. Our command line operators help automate the process of launching a simulation baking or rendering task as easy as possible. The command line rendering tool doesn't just apply for a FLIP Fluids simulation, you can use these operators in other scenes too!

Related Documentation

Why render from the command line?

There can be render instabilities in Blender that may cause crashes, result in incorrect renders, or result in whitewater particles not rendering when rendering FLIP Fluids addon simulations. This is caused by a design issue in Blender where the viewport and render threads do not sync correctly and can cause a crash (Issue T60094 and Issue T88811). This becomes more troublesome as amount of geometry increases. This issue is the reason why the viewport needs to be locked during render to improve stability. Rendering from the command line will bypass this design issue since the viewport is no longer needed.

Unfortunately this issue is outside of our control and will need to be fixed by the Blender developers. There is a comment here in the issue thread where a Blender developer mentions the design issues will need to be handled in regular development:

From Sergey: Currently it's as stable as we can make it. It is indeed true that interface is better be locked, otherwise render thread might cause conflicts with the viewport (due to python handlers possibly modifying data while it's being drawn by the viewport).
There are ways around it, but needs some design changes. Will be handled outside of the bug tracker as a regular development.

This issue can be highly dependent on the system. Some artists will experience this issue frequently while others may never experience this issue. Due to this issue, we highly recommend becoming familiar with the command line rendering tools.

Command Line Bake

_{Launch Bake}	_{Automatically launch a new command line window and start baking the simulation. You will need to save your .blend file before running this operator. Any unsaved changes will not take effect in the command line bake. After launching the baking task, you may close Blender and the bake will keep running. If you want to view your simulation progress, you can open your scene and scrub through the timeline as you normally would. Notes: Depending on system security settings, this automatic command line baking feature may be considered a security risk and may not start. If this is the case, see the documentation below on copying the baking command and starting the command line bake manually.}
_{Copy Bake Command}	_{Click to copy the command line baking command to your system clipboard. After copying the command, you may paste this into your system's command line window to start the baking task. You will need to save your .blend file before running this command.}
_{Bake and Render}	_{Enable both baking and rendering in the command line process.}
_{Bake and Render Mode}	_{How to bake and render the simulation Render After Bake Start a command line animation render after the command line bake process is completed. This option also offers a selection between a normal command line render or to launch a frame by frame batch file render. Render During Bake Start command line rendering the simulation as frames are completed while baking. This mode will require more system memory. Tip: When starting or resuming the command line process, the render will begin from the first frame by default. If you want to skip already rendered frames, disable the Blender Output Properties > Output > Overwrite setting.}
_{Render Instances}	_{Maximum number of render instances to run simultaneously. This number is how many frames are allowed to be rendered at the same time. More render instances maximizes system resource usage if the simulation is running faster than the render, but will require more RAM and also GPU VRAM if rendering on the GPU. Only available in Render After Bake mode.}
_{Continue render from last rendered frame}	_{If enabled, already rendered frames will not be overwritten and the render will begin after the last rendered frame and any already rendered frames will be skipped. If disabled, frames will be overwritten and rendering will begin from the first frame. Only available in Render After Bake mode.}

Command Line Animation Render

_{Launch Render}	_{Automatically launch a new command line window and start rendering the scene. You will need to save your .blend file before running this operator. Any unsaved changes will not take effect in the command line render. After launching the render, you may close Blender and the render will keep running. Notes: Depending on system security settings, this automatic command line rendering feature may be considered a security risk and may not start. If this is the case, see the documentation below on copying the rendering command and starting the command line render manually.}
_{Copy Render Command}	_{Click to copy the command line animation rendering command to your system clipboard. After copying the command, you may paste this into your system's command line window to start the rendering task. You will need to save your .blend file before running this command.}
_{Generate Batch File (Windows OS only)}	_{Click to generate a Windows batch (.bat) file set up to render each frame one by one. The .bat file will be saved in the same directory as your .blend file and will be labeled in the form: RENDER_[blend_filename].bat. Notes: This operator will detect already rendered frames in the output directory and disregard these from the batch file. To re-render all frames, make sure to delete the rendered frames in the output directory. Notes: Upon a render crash, the batch file will start up Blender again and begin rendering the next frame. In this way, you can minimize unrendered frames if your system is prone to render crashes. Notes: This operator can also be used outside of the FLIP Fluids addon to render a sequence of frames individually. There are some bugs in Blender which can cause an animation to be rendered incorrectly and a workaround to these issues is to render each frame one by one.}
_{Launch Batch File Render (Windows OS only)}	_{(Play icon) Automatically launch the generated batch file. If no file has been generated yet, the Generate Batch File operator will be run before launching.}
_{Open Output Folder (Windows OS only)}	_{(Folder icon) Open the render output folder in your Windows filebrowser.}

Command Line Frame Render

_{Launch Frame Render}	_{Automatically launch a new command line window and begin rendering a single frame. This operator will render the current timeline frame. Notes: The .blend file should be saved before using this operator in order for render and simulation settings to take effect. However, it is not required to save the .blend file if you are only changing a frame in the timeline or if changing the Open Image After Render or Close CMD Window After Render options. Depending on system security settings, this automatic command line rendering feature may be considered a security risk and may not start. If this is the case, see the documentation below on copying the rendering command and starting the command line render manually.}
_{Copy Render Command}	_{Click to copy the command line single frame rendering command to your system clipboard. After copying the command, you may paste this into your system's command line window to start the rendering task. You will need to save your .blend file before running this command.}
_{Open Image After Render}	_{If enabled, the command line script will automatically open the image using the default image program of your OS after the render is completed.}
_{Close CMD Window After Render (Windows OS only)}	_{If enabled, the command line window will be automatically closed after the render is completed.}

Command Line Alembic Export

The Alembic (.abc) format is designed for storing animated simulation data and is the best format to export a FLIP Fluids addon simulation. Exporting to Alembic can be useful for archiving simulation data or for submitting jobs to render farms that do not support the FLIP Fluids addon.

The Blender Alembic Exporter can suffer from instability and incorrect mesh export due to the same issue described in the above Why render from the command line topic. Use the command line Alembic export tool to ensure a stable and correct export. This tool automatically sets up the simulation meshes for export and can also export the surface velocity, whitewater velocity, and fluid particle velocity attributes for motion blur rendering. This tool also adds optimizations that can speed up the export process compared to using the default Blender Alembic exporter.

Command Line Alembic Export Additional Notes

Exporting the simulation with velocity data requires the addon to be able to remove any geometry node motion blur setups and to be able to add its own Alembic velocity export geometry node setups. This tool will work best if you use the Initialize Motion Blur tool to set up motion blur. If the motion blur set up is created manually or uses a custom node group, this tool is not guaranteed to work correctly and you may be required to manually remove the geometry node groups.

Blender's Alembic exporter can only export Mesh type data for simulation meshes. If you have any custom geometry node groups that convert the meshes to another data type, such as Point Clouds or Volumes, you will be required to remove these node groups manually before using the export tool.

Command Line Tools Additional Notes

Linux Support

On Linux, command line operators will launch a new terminal window and will start executing commands in the Bash Unix Shell, which is a popular default shell among many Linux distributions. The gnome-terminal command is required to launch the Bash shell. If either Bash or gnome-terminal is not available on the system path, command line operators will fallback to launching the xterm terminal emulator. If there are no available tools to launch a new terminal window, you should use the Copy Command to Clipboard operators and paste the commands manually in the terminal program of your choice.

The Render Frame operator requires the xdg-open command to open frame renders in the default image program. This command may not always function correctly depending on distribution or system configuration. If this operation fails, the frame will still be available to be opened manually.

Turbo Tools Addon Support

If an installation of the Turbo Tools Addon by 3d illusions is detected, an additional menu for launching a command line animation or frame render will be displayed. These operators will launch a render using the Turbo Tools render operators rather than the default Blender render operators. For more information on Turbo Tools command line rendering and for more options, refer to their documentation.

Geometry Node Tools

This section contains operations related to geometry nodes. These features require an installation of Blender 3.1 or later.

Related Documentation

Domain Attributes Documentation.
For details on what this operator does and how to set up motion blur rendering manually, refer to the Basic Motion Blur example scene.

_{Initialize Motion Blur}	_{This operator will automatically set up everything necessary for motion blur rendering. This operator checks that the render engine is set to Cycles, that Cycles motion blur rendering is enabled, that necessary FLIP Fluids attributes are enabled, will initialize basic geometry node set ups on the fluid surface and whitewater, and will check that the simulation mesh objects have motion blur rendering enabled. The operator will also display what changes were made to the .blend file in the Blender System Console window. On Windows, this window can be opened with Window > Toggle System Console or by running Blender from the terminal on MacOS/Linux. This operator is best used before baking a simulation, as the attribute data may need to be baked.}
_{Toggle Motion Blur Rendering ON/OFF}	_{Toggle Motion blur rendering for the simulation meshes on or off. This operator will enable or disable the simulation mesh object and geometry node settings for motion blur rendering.}

Measure Object Speed Tool

The Measure Object Speed tool can be used to measure the speed of the active selected object within the simulation at the current frame. Ensuring a realistic movement speed for an object can be important for realism and predictable results for your effect. The measured speed of an object depends on the object animation, simulation world scale, simulation time scale, and the simulation frame rate.

Notes and Info

The Measure Object Speed operator will measure the actively selected object at the current frame. Using this operator on an object with complex geometry or a high polycount may cause Blender to pause momentarily during computation. If you are unsure how long this process will take, save your Blend file just in case.
This operator is limited to Mesh, Empty, or Curve type Blender objects.
Speed measurements:
- Center speed: The speed that the center of the object is moving.
- Min Vertex speed: The lowest measured speed of all object vertices.
- Max Vertex speed: The highest measured speed of all object vertices.
Speed measurements can be displayed in metric units (meters per second, kilometers per hour) or in imperial units (feet per second, miles per hour).
An information header will display the last measured object name, frame, number of vertices processed, and time to compute the measurement in milliseconds.
An information footer will display the current simulation values that are used when calculating speed: world scale, time scale, and frame rate. When changing these settings, the displayed speed measurements will be automatically updated.
Enabling the Update on frame change option will automatically re-measure the actively selected object speed after changing the timeline frame. Not recommended to leave this option enabled when not in use as this could slow down blender when measuring complex or high polycount geometry.
FLIP objects are not required to have their Export Animated Mesh option enabled for accurate speed measurement.
This tool does not require a FLIP Fluids Domain object to be present in the scene and can be used as a general purpose speed measurement tool. If there is no domain, the world/time scale will be set to 1.0 and the frame rate will match the scene frame rate.

Related Topics

Beginner Tips

This section contains options and links that are helpful to beginners (and experienced users too!). Refer to the Preferences: UI Options topic for documentation on these options.

Disable Addon

The FLIP Fluids addon is continuously running scripts in order to manage all of the functionality of the addon. These scripts can add overhead and can slow down the Blend file, especially if there are many objects contained in the file. Use the Disable FLIP Fluids in Blend File operator to temporarily disable the addon to speed up the Blend file when you are not actively using the addon.

While the addon is disabled, all functionality will be disabled. To continue using the addon, simply re-enable the addon using Enable FLIP Fluids in Blend File operator displayed in the FLIP Fluids sidebar or the Physics Properties panel.

Viewport Display Operators

These operators help you quickly control how the simulation results are displayed in viewport.

For the surface and whitewater display settings, refer to the FLIP Fluid Display panel Surface Viewport Display Mode and Whitewater Viewport Display Mode

Simulation Visibility

_{Show In Viewport}	_{Display the simulation in the viewport. Disable to speed up playback while working on other areas of your scene.}

Load Frame

_{Reload Frame}	_{Reload the current frame in the timeline. Notes: If you have changed any display settings, you will need to click this operator (or set the timeline frame) to reload the frame and refresh the simulation results. Simulation results are not automatically refreshed as this can be an expensive operation to reload all of the simulation meshes.}
_{Load Last Frame}	_{Load the most recently simulated frame into the viewport.}
_{Auto-Load Baked Frames}	_{Enable this option to automatically load newly baked frames as they finish simulating. We like enabling this option to see how the simulation is running while we're away from the computer.}
_{Sync With CMD Bake}	_{Automatically load frames as they finish baking when running a command line bake. Note: this feature may decrease Blender performance and responsiveness when a CMD bake is not running. If this is an issue, it is recommended to disable this option when a CMD bake is not running.}

Simulation Playback

Controls how the simulation animation is played back in the viewport or render.

_{Playback Mode}	_{How to playback the simulation animation. Timeline Use the current timeline frame for the simulation playback. Override Frame Use a custom frame for simulation playback instead of the current timeline frame. TIP: The overridden frame value can be keyframed for complex control over animation playback. Hold Frame Hold a single frame in place, regardless of timeline position.}

Override Frame Settings

_{Override Frame Number}	_{The custom frame number to override. If this value is not a whole number, the frame to be loaded will be rounded down. This option is only available if Override Frame is selected. TIP: The overridden frame value can be keyframed for complex control over animation playback.}
_{Make Keyframes Linear (operator)}	_{Automatically set the Override Frame interpolation mode to Linear. This operator is only applicable if the Override Frame value is keyframe animated. This option is only available if Override Frame is selected. TIP: The interpolation mode can also be adjusted in the Blender Graph Editor when selecting the domain object.}

Hold Frame Settings

_{Hold Frame Number}	_{The timeline frame to be held in place. This option is only available if Hold Frame is selected.}
_{Delete Other Cache Files (operator)}	_{Delete all cache files except the held frame. This option is only available if Hold Frame is selected.}

Playback Offset Settings

_{Frame Offset}	_{Frame offset for simulation playback. For example, setting this value to -10 will shift the simulation playback backwards by 10 frames.}
_{Current Simulation Frame (info)}	_{Displays the current simulation frame with the Playback Mode and Frame Offset applied.}

Technical Support Tools

These are features used by the developers to assist in technical support requests but may also be useful to you during issue troubleshooting. Requires the Preferences > Enable Technical Support Tools option to be enabled.

Notes:

These features may not be as robust as other operators in the sidebar menu and may fail if in an incorrect context. It is recommended to use these operators in the viewport Object Mode.
Some operators will print to the Blender System Console Window. This window can be opened on Windows in Blender with Window > Toggle System Console or on MacOS/Linux but running Blender from a terminal.

_{Print System & Blend Info}	_{Print information embedded in the Blend file about the artist's system hardware, Blender installation setup, and simulation setup to the Blender System Console.}
_{Standardize Blend File}	_{Standardizes settings within a Blend file for improved compatibility and consistency when sharing Blend files. Sets the cache/render output to a relative path location based on the Blend file name, Enable simulation visibility within the viewport, and sets the surface/whitewater visibility to final.}
_{Display Overlay Stats}	_{Enable viewport overlays and display the stats overlay (number of objects, geometry counts). Used to get a rough idea for how much geometry there is in a scene.}
_{Select All Simulation Objects}	_{Selects all objects related to the simulation. These are FLIP objects, fluid/inflow targets, domain meshing volume object, and simulation meshes. Notes: This may not select all objects related to the simulation as some objects may have dependencies that cannot be easily detected such as parented relations or objects that affect modifiers. This will also not select objects hidden from the viewport as these are unselectable.}
_{Print Hidden Simulation Objects}	_{Prints a list of simulation objects hidden in the viewport to the system console.}
_{Show and Select Hidden Simulation Objects}	_{Enables all simulation objects to display in the viewport and select these objects. A common mistake is setting a FLIP object as hidden and forgetting about this object that would still affect the simulation.}
_{Print Inverse Obstacles}	_{Print a list of inverse obstacles to the system console.}
_{Select Inverse Obstacles}	_{Select all inverse obstacles. Similar to other selection operators, this will not select hidden objects. A common mistake is setting an inverse obstacle when it is not needed and forgetting about this obstacle, which can cause unexpected results in the simulation.}
_{Invert Selection}	_{Select all objects that are not currently selected. Can be useful after using _Select Simulation Objects_ operator to get all objects that are not related to the simulation and begin deleting these objects to unclutter the scene for a minimal troubleshooting Blend file. Similar to other selection operators, this selection may not be accurate due to unevaluated dependencies.}
_{Increment Version and Save Blend File}	_{Quickly increase the file number version in the filename and saves without opening a window dialog. Useful to use often when removing objects when creating a minimal Blend file that reproduces an issue.}

Home

Guides and Info

Settings Documentation

FLIP Fluid Objects
- Domain
  - Simulation
  - Cache
  - Display
  - Surface
  - Particles
  - Whitewater
  - Attributes
  - World
  - Materials
  - Advanced
  - Debug
  - Stats
- Fluid
- Obstacle
- Inflow
- Outflow
- Force Field

Menu Documentation

Technical Support

Technical Support Guidelines

_{Launch Alembic Export}	_{Automatically launch a new command line window and start the Alembic export. You will need to save your .blend file before running this operator. Any unsaved changes will not take effect in the command line export. After launching the export task, you may close Blender and the exporter will keep running. The command line window will display info about the export and the progress of the export. Notes: Depending on system security settings, this automatic command line export feature may be considered a security risk and may not start. If this is the case, see the documentation below on copying the export command and starting the command line export manually.}
_{Copy Alembic Export Command}	_{Click to copy the command line Alembic export command to your system clipboard. After copying the command, you may paste this into your system's command line window to start the export task. You will need to save your .blend file before running this command.}
_{Mesh Export}	_{Select the fluid surface, fluid particles, and whitewater foam/bubble/spray/dust meshes that will be exported. If the surface, fluid particles, or whitewater features are disabled, any enabled meshes in this section will be ignored.}
_{Export Velocity}	_{Enable to include velocity data in the Alembic export. This data will be available under the velocity attribute of the Alembic export and can be used for motion blur rendering. Velocity attributes for the surface and/or whitewater are required to be baked before export. Tip: to verify that the Alembic export contains a velocity attribute, this data can be viewed in the Blender Spreadsheet Editor after importing the Alembic file.}
_Scale	_{Scale value by which to enlarge or shrink the simulation meshes with respect to the world's origin.}
_{Frame Range Mode}	_{Frame range to use for Alembic export. Timeline Use the start and end frame range from the timeline. Custom Use a custom start and end frame range.}
_{Alembic Output}	_{Set the output path for the Alembic file. Remember to save the Blend file before running the export operator for any changes to take effect.}