How to make a liquid levitate and dance using RealFlow and Cinema4D
RealFlow is a software from NextLimit which allows to simulate all sorts of liquids and physically correct dynamics of objects. The program is available for several operating system and works together with major computer graphics applications via plugins. The purpose of this short tutorial is the creation of an animation of "magic" liquids floating in the air, dancing around and forming all sorts of strange shapes. Once you have installed the simulation and a nice rendering setup in Cinema4D, you can animate the liquids in different ways and re-run the simulation again and again until you like the "liquid-choreography".
Have a look at a finished animation, three examples of many variations possible are shown here (QuickTime movie, Sorenson codec, 6-12 Mb):
movie 1 movie 2 movie 3
The Workflow
This project was done using RealFlow 4.2.3. and Cinema4D R10.1 with the advanced render module on a Macintosh OSX10.4.9 system. Both RealFlow and Cinema4D are available for Mac and Windows and the files can be exchanged between the two operation systems. This tutorial is thought for beginning users of RealFlow and Cinema4D. You need to have installed the software and the plugins. The time needed for computer calculations in this tutorial depends on the amount of frames and on several parameters (simulation stepsize and resolution/particle count being the most important ones), but it will be in the range of some hours. The amount of storage space needed is also very much depending on the the mesh resolution and on which types of cache files you decide to export during simulation... but it is always advisable to reserve several gigabytes for RealFlow projects. In the end, a little movie will be made, and this can be done directly in Cinema4D or with a progam that assembles single images into a movie.
This is the detailed workflow of the project:
1) Creation of an object (a simple box) in Cinema4D and export as SD-file by the plugin from Nextlimit.
2) Setting up a project in RealFlow with all the necessary components such as objects, emitter, forces (daemons) and the liquid mesh.
3) Setup of keyframes and animation curves in RealFlow
4) Running the simulation, which produces the liquid (meshes) that we can import later into Cinema4D for rendering the movie.
5) Finishing the render setup in Cinema4D including lights and materials, importing the meshes.
6) Rendering the animation in Cinema4D