NewTek LIGHTWAVE RealFlow Connectivity

RealFlow LightWave Plug-in

Features and Tutorials
This document describes the plugins made for the RealFlow - LightWave connection. The main focus areas have been workflow and performance. In this manual you can find tutorials explaining the workflow as well.

Installer for Windows

The plug-in has an installer wizard so you will not have to manually copy files into LightWaves Plugins folder. The installer auto-detects the path of the installed LightWave 9.6 or 10.0. Both 32bit and 64-bit builds are supported.

The wizard auto-detects LightWave 9.6 installation location.

The installer only copies the plug-in file into the Plugins folder; after that the user has to add it in Layout manually with the following steps: 1. Select the Utilities tab and choose Add Plugins from the menu.

2. Navigate to LightWaves Plugins folder and select the nextlimit32.p or nextlimit64.p plug-in file (depending on the platform). When the plug-in is added successfully the following message is displayed: 16 plugins have been successfully added.

Add the RealFlow plug-in in Layout.

Installer for MAC

Unzip the zip file and load it from Utilities -> AddPlugins menu as described above.

Master plug-in
The installed RealFlow plug-in contains several plug-ins that appear in different parts of the program. All functionalities are accessible and can be controlled via a master plug-in called Next Limit Plug-in Manager. To add the master plug-in select the Utilities tab and choose Master Plugins from the menu, or hit CTRL+Q. Select the Next Limit Manager in the plug-in list of the Master Plugins window as shown in the following figure.

Add the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in.

To open the GUI, double-click on the Next Limit Plug-in Manager or right-click and select Properties. The tab bar shows the available functionalities which are the following, from left to right:

Particle Import Imports RealFlow particle .bin or .pxy (proxy) sequence with the selected
attributes.

Particle Export: Exports particles to RealFlow .bin sequence. SD Import: Imports RealFlow SD scene file. SD Export: Exports scene geometry and camera. Mesh Import: Imports RealFlow mesh .bin sequence with the selected attributes.

RF Particle Importer
RF Particle Importer displacement plug-in loads RealFlow particle .bin or .pxy (proxy) sequence with the selected attributes. There are two ways to add a RealFlow particle system to the scene. The first method is to add the RF Particle Importer manually: 1. Select Items tab and add a Null object to the scene, or press CTRL+N. 2. Press p to open the object properties window. 3. Select Deform tab. 4. Add the RF Particle Importer displacement plug-in. 5. Open the GUI by double-clicking on the RF Particle Importer plug-in. 6. Click on the File Path button and select one .bin or .pxy file from the sequence. The plug-in tries to recognize the name of the particle system and the padding size from the file name, and the start / end frame of the sequence. When the particles are loaded successfully, the null object is renamed to the name of the particle system.

Add the RF Particle Importer displacement plug-in.

An alternative method to add RealFlow particles is by using the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in which executes the above steps automatically. From the master window the particles can imported as HyperVoxel particles or as partigons with the Import As option. HyperVoxel particles

dont have a surface, they can be rendered only with the HyperVoxel plug-in as surface, volume or sprite objects. While partigons act like normal objects and can be surfaced in the Surface Editor.

Memory management and speed can be balanced via the Cache Mode feature which has the following options: Current Frame, Core Frames, All Frames. In Current Frame mode the user only loads the current frame into the memory. This mode has the lowest memory usage but it reads the next file from the disc in every frame. Core Frames holds the neighborhood of the current frame in the memory. The core size can be dynamically set. All Frames caches the whole sequence. Start/End frames are set automatically after a correct file path is given. Later this can be changed, so the plug-in will only render the particles inside the specified interval. LOD (Level of Detail) is used for filtering the particles in the viewport. Complex fluid systems can be displayed as fewer guide particles in the viewport. Frames of the sequence can be shifted, the current frame can be locked, and also the whole sequence can be inverted. Motion blur interpolation is supported. There are two methods for the interpolation described below. The speed and characteristic of the animation can be controlled via an envelope called Playback, where 0% means the start frame, 100% means the end frame of the selected animation. When the animation is changed, float frames have to be rendered from the RealFlow particle sequence, thus the particles are interpolated. You can find an example how to use the Playback envelope in the tutorial section. The transformation (translation, rotation, scale) of the holder Null object is applied to the particles.

RF Particle Importer plug-in parameters.

The setup properties on the RF Particle Importer window are the following:

File Path: the path of one of the Real Flow particle files from the .bin or .pxy sequence. Name: read-only field. The name of the particle system comes from the name of the
RealFlow particle file. Recognized automatically when opening a particle file.

Padding: padding size of the Real Flow particle file. Recognized automatically when opening
a particle file.

Cache Mode: defines disc / memory usage.

- Current Frame: reads the current file from the disk. - Core Frames: reads frames inside the ''Cache Core''. - All Frames: reads all frames inside the specified start/end range.

 Cache Core: the radius for Core Frames mode. Level of Detail: the level of detail of displayed particles in percent. Interpolation: type of the interpolation method used for Motion Blur and Playback
calculation. - Deform: reads the .bin file of the current and next frame and interpolates using the two values. With this mehod all the attributes (like density, pressure, etc) can be interpolated, but can not interpolate in the last frame. - Velocity: calculates float frame position by the velocity attribute. It's very fast, but the attributes are unchanged.

Start/End Frame: the start and end frame of the sequence. Offset: the shifting of the imported sequence. Lock Current Frame: keeps the current frame displayed. Lock Last Frame: keeps the last imported frame displayed. Invert Sequence: inverts the file sequence. Playback envelope: flag to use envelope to control the animation. Edit: opens the Graph Editor with the playback envelope. Reset: sets a linear evelope between the selected start and end frame.

 Viewport Interpolation: displays the interpolated particles in the viewport. Disable this
option could save time for displaying particle systems with high number of particles. Every particle has several attributes like age, number of neighbors or physical parameters. These can be set on the Particles tab of the RF Particle Importer window. The attributes are separated into two groups: vector and scalar attributes. The user can define for every attribute that he wants to keep the original value stored in the particle file (Keep), wants to override it by a custom expression (Add) or does not want any value for the attribute (No). A particle holds the following attributes: Velocity vector Force vector Vorticity vector Normal vector Texture vector Number of neighbors Information bit Age of the particle Isolation time Viscosity Density Pressure Mass Temperature Id of the current particle

RF Particle Importer attribute parameters.

RF Particle Display
The RF Particle Display plug-in displays the particles in the Layout viewport. It can be added to an object in its properties window: 1. Select the object which will hold the RealFlow particles. 2. Press p to open the object properties window. 3. Select Geometry tab. 4. Add the RF Particle Display custom object plug-in.

Add RF Particle Display plug-in to display particles.

The GUI can be opened by double-clicking the RF Particle Display plug-in. The parameters are the following:

Display Mode:
Particles: represents every particle with a point. Circles: represents every particle with a circle. Box: displays a bounding box around the imported particles as a guide geometry.

Radius: active only in Circles display mode. Defines the radius of the displayed circles. Color By: in Particles display mode sets the color of the particles by their velocity, pressure
or temperature value.

Min / Max Color: the particles are displayed with a color between the minimum and
maximum in custom color by mode. The color is linearly scaled in the R, G, B components by the current attribute value.

RF Particle Display interface.

When the RF Particle Importer plug-in is applied to the object, or the RealFlow particle sequence is added to the scene via the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in, then the RF Particle Display plug-in is added automatically to the object. The display parameter window can be opened directly from the RF Particle Importer plug-ins interface with the Display button.

RF Particle Attribute Info

The RF Particle Attribute Info plug-in provides information on the minimum and maximum values of particles attributes (like velocity, density, pressure, etc.) in the selected range of a RealFlow particle sequence. It can be opened from the Additional menu of the Utilities tab in Layout.

Add RF Particle Attribute Info plug-in.

The parameters are the following:

File Path: the path of one of the Real Flow particle files from the .bin sequence. Name: read-only field. The name of the particle system comes from the name of the
RealFlow particle file. Recognized automatically when opening a particle file.

Padding: padding size of the Real Flow particle file. Recognized automatically when opening
a particle file.

Start/End Frame: the start and end frame of the sequence of the calculation.
The RealFlow particle sequence can be selected similar to the RF Particle Import plug-in. The calculation can be started by pressing the Calculate Min/Max button. The calculated values are displayed in the fields at the bottom of the panel. There are four tabs: Velocity: minimum / maximum values for each dimension of the velocity vector and the magnitude.

 Force: minimum / maximum values for each dimension of the force vector and the magnitude. Vorticity: minimum / maximum values for each dimension of the vorticity vector and the magnitude. Scalar: minimum / maximum values for scalar attributes like density, pressure or temperature. The calculated values can be exported to a .txt file with the Export to TXT button after the file path is selected.

RF Particle Attribute Info interface.

RF ParticleInfo node
The attributes of the RealFlow particles (like velocity, density, etc.) can be accessed in the surface node editor with the RF Particle Node plug-in. Using the plug-in requires the following steps: Import the RealFlow particles as Partigons with the RF Particle Importer plug-in Press F5 to open the Surface Editor and select the Partigons surface Press the Edit Nodes button to open the Node Editor

 Select Additional -> RF ParticleInfo from the Add Node menu.

Add RF ParticleInfo node.

The node can output most of the attributes of each RealFlow particle in the frame. During the render the raytracer provides only the intersection point of a ray and the surface thus a particle can be identified after its position. The first particles attributes will be output by the node which position is inside the Epsilon range of the surface intersection point. If the epsilon value is too high or too low the node can provide invalid attributes.

RF ParticleInfo node interface.

TUTORIAL (How to import Realflow particles into LightWave)

1- The easiest way to import particles from RealFlow in LightWave is by using the Next Limit Plug-In Manager master plug-in. Open the master plug-in window by pressing CTRL+Q and select the Next Limit Manager plug-in from the list.

Add Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in.

2- Double click on the Next Limit Plug-in Manager to display the user interface. The Particle Import tab is selected. 3- Click on the File Path button to choose the particle sequence generated in Realflow. Any of the .bin or .pxy (proxy) files can be selected.

Selecting a BIN file from the particle sequence.

4- The Name and Padding values are set by the file name. When this is not correct, set the real padding size with the slicer. Press the Add button and the particles will be loaded in the Layout viewport. 5- The user interface of the RF Particle Importer plug-in is displayed on the screen after the particles are loaded successfully. Here you can set how the RealFlow particle system behaves in the scene.

Particles displayed in the Lightwave viewport.

6- The table on the Next Limit Plug-in Managers Particle Import tab shows the objects with attached RealFlow particles. The parameter window can be opened with the Edit button for a selected object. Or it can be removed from the scene with the Delete button.

TUTORIAL (How to change the animation of a Realflow particle sequence via the Playback envelope)
1- Import the particle sequence as described above. 2- Select the Playback envelope checkbox. 3- Press the Edit button to open the Graph Editor with the playback envelope. 4- Press the Reset button to get a default linear envelope.

Graph Editor with the Playback evelope.

5- Select the key at the end frame and move it by 10 frames. 6- Change the value of the key to 50% percent. 7- Move the timeline and you can see as the animation has been slowed down.

Animation changed by the Playback envelope.

RF Particle Exporter
The RF Particle Exporter writes particle system data into RealFlow .bin sequence from LightWave Layout. The exporter can be reached in the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-ins Particle Export tab. The user has to select an object which has an attached particle system or its possible to export any objects vertices as particles. The file names in the sequence are generated from the name and padding parameters when exporting a frame range. Attributes for the .bin file are inherited from the Particles tab setup of the objects RF Particle Importer plug-in.

RF Particle Exporter setup interface.

The basic setup parameters and additional file information can be set on the RF Particle Exporter interface. The setup properties are the following: Item: LightWave object which holds the particles to export. Only objects with attached particle systems can be selected. Export Vertices of: option for exporting an objects vertices as particles. Because the vertices have no RF particle attributes, default values will be used. Directory: path of the directory where the RealFlow particle file sequence is written. Name: particle system name. Used in the .bin file name.

Padding: padding used in the .bin file name. Start/End Frame: indicates the frames to export. Inc Frame: indicates the increment to generate the frames when exporting. Export: starts exporting the particles.

The RealFlow particle file contains some meta-information which can not be read from a LightWave particle system. These parameters can be set on the Particle File tab: Fluid Name: name of the fluid. Fluid Type: type of the fluid which can be Gas, Liquid, Dumb or Elastic. This parameter defines the behavior of the fluid. Frame / sec: frame / sec used in RealFlow rendering. Scene scale: scene scale parameter. Radius: radius of the particles. Emitter position / rotation / scale: fluid emitter properties.

RF Particle Exporter Particle File tab parameters.

TUTORIAL (How to export LightWave particles to BIN)

1- In order to export particles in LightWave you need to add the Next Limit Plug-in manager master plug-in to the scene. Open the master plug-in window by pressing CTRL+Q and select the Next Limit Manager plug-in from the list.

LightWave particle scene to export to BIN files.

2- Double-click on the Next Limit Plug-in Manager to display the user interface and select the Particle Export tab. 3- Select the particle system you want to export to BIN sequence. Note: Only objects with an attached particle system are listed in the combo box. 4- Click on the Directory button and select folder tot export the .bin files. 5- Indicate padding in the file name, start / end frame parameters and meta-information on the Particle File tab. 6- Press the Export button to write BIN sequence.

RF SD Importer
RF SD Importer loads RealFlow SD scene files. An .sd file contains camera and object parameters and animation. The camera can be loaded separately from the objects. When an object .sd file is selected the number of available objects and the name of the first two objects are listed in a readonly field. When an object with the same name already exists in the scene, the animation will be applied to it from the .sd file. The plug-in can add objects from the disc automatically or can create missing objects on import. In the second case .lwo object files are generated for each object to a selected folder. The user can define whether to load the objects with or without texture information. The objects which come from RealFlow sd files are listed in a table on the interface. Here the user can set whether the animation may be applied to an object or not by clicking on the Anim column of the objects row in the table. More sd files can be added to the same scene.

Import objects from RealFlow SD file.

The RF SD Importer parameters are the following: Camera: path of the camera .sd file. Objects: path of object .sd file. Missing Objects: defines import behavior for objects which are not present in the scene.

- Skip: does not load any missing objects. -Create/Load: adds SD objects which are not present in the scene. First looks at the selected Object Folder for [object_name].lwo file. If it exists then loads the object from the disc. When no object file is present then writes out an .lwo file into the Object Folder and loads it. - Create: adds SD objects which are not present in the scene. Forced to write out an .lwo file for each object into the Object Folder. When the file already exists the plug-in will overwrite it. Object Folder: path of the directory where the .lwo files of the missing objects will be generated. Can be set only when Missing Objects behavior is Create / Load or Create. Add Texture: loads SD objects with texture data. Invert Normals: inverts polygon normal vectors of the imported objects. Create Motion Keys: adds keys for each frame of the animation.

Note: Invert Normals option is useful for RealWave objects. Edit: opens the RF SD animation plug-in interface of the selected object. Import: adds the selected camera and / or objects to the scene.

RF SD Animation
The animation is applied to an object by the RF SD Animation displacement plug-in. It is added automatically when the .sd file is loaded in the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in, or can be added manually with the following steps: 1. Select an object. 2. Press p to open the object properties window. 3. Select Deform tab. 4. Add the RF SD Animation displacement plug-in.

Add RF SD Animation plug-in to an object.

The .sd file has to contain the object with the same name to load the animation. Start and end frames are set automatically after a correct file path is given. Later this can be changed, so the plug-in will animate the object inside the specified interval. The animation sequence can be shifted, the current frame can be locked, and also the whole sequence can be inverted. Keys can be added for each frame of the animation with the Create Motion Keys button. If keys are added the motion of the object can be modified. Changing any parameter of the plug-in takes effect only when the keys are re-created. Added keys can be removed for the selected frame range with the Delete Motion Keys button. Without keys the plug-in reads the sd file on the fly and the animation is static. The plug-in parameters are the following: SD File: path of the .sd file which contains the object.

Start/End Frame: the start and end frame of the animation. Offset: the shifting of the animation. Lock Last Frame: keeps the last imported frame displayed.

 Lock Current Frame: keeps the current frame displayed. Invert Sequence: inverts the animation.

RF SD Animation plug-in parameters.

Realwave SD object imported in LW.

Note: RealWave can be imported as SD file the same way as an SD object.

TUTORIAL (How to import Realflow SD files into LightWave)

1- To import a RealFlow scene in LightWave you can use the Next Limit Plug-In Manager master plug-in. Open the master plug-in window by pressing CTRL+Q and select the Next Limit Manager plug-in from the list. 2- Double click on the Next Limit Plug-in Manager to display the user interface and select the SD Import tab. 3- Select the .sd file for the camera and an .sd file which holds the scene objects. 4- Create/Load Missing Objects is checked which means the objects will be generated and added to the scene. The Object Folder is set to the input .sd folder. The objectss .lwo files will be written to this directory. Select Add Texture if you want to load texture for the objects.

5- Press the Import button to add the camera and objects to the scene.

SD object displayed in LW viewport.

6- To modify the animation for an object select it, press p to open the properties window, go to Deform tab and double-click on RF SD Animation plug-in.

RF SD Exporter
RF SD Exporter writes LightWave scene data into RealFlow SD files. The exporter can be found in the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-ins SD Export tab. The SD scene can consist of geometry objects and an optional camera. Objects can be collected in a table to export. The Add button appends the object which are selected in the Object combo box to the list. The Add All button selects all available scene objects. The Add Selected button adds all objects to the export list which are selected in Layout. The Delete button removes the selected objects from the table while the Delete All button clears the selection. The color of the objects comes from the item color used in Layout. Mode of the export (transformation matrix or pre-vertex deformation) can be set in the table by clicking the Mode column of the objects row.

Exporting objects to SD file with the RF SD Exporter plug-in.

The RF SD Exporter plug-in parameters are the following: SD File: path of output .sd file. Start/End Frame: indicates the frames to export. Inc Frame: indicates the increment to generate the frames when exporting. Scene Scale: global scale factor. Add Camera: exports selected camera to the .sd file when checked.

Object / Add / Add All / Add Selected / Delete / Delete All: collects objects to export. Export: starts exporting the scene.

SD file accepts only triangle polygons. When adding an object with non-triangle faces the plug-in shows a warning message (see below) and tries to execute triangulation automatically. For complex faces (like texts) the adopted algorithm can be wrong. In this case manual triangulation is required for the export. Objects with non-triangulated polygons are marked with (!) in the table on the SD Export tab.

Warning message on exporting object with non-triangulated polygon(s).

Only face type polygons are written to the SD file. When an object contains polygons of other type (such as curve, metaball or bone) a warning message is displayed.

Warning message on exporting object with non-face type polygon(s).

When an object contains bones the deformation is exported only in vertex mode.

Warning message on exporting object with bones in matrix mode.

TUTORIAL (How to export LightWave objects into a RealFlow SD file)

1- In order to export SD from RealFlow in LightWave you need to have your scene ready with the objects to export.

LW scene to export to SD file.

2- Add the Next Limit Plug-In Manager master plug-in. Open the master plug-in window by pressing CTRL+Q and select the Next Limit Manager plug-in from the list. 3- Double-click on the Next Limit Plug-in Manager to display the user interface and select the SD Export tab. 4- Indicate the output .sd file with the SD File... button and set the start and end frames. 5- Select a camera if you want to add one to the SD file. Uncheck Add Camera if you dont want to write a camera to the scene. 6- Collect the objects to export with the Add / Add All / Delete / Delete All buttons.

7- Press the Export button to write the RealFlow SD file.

RF Mesh Importer
The RF Mesh Importer displacement plug-in loads .bin or .lwo RealFlow mesh sequences . There are two ways to add a RealFlow mesh object to the scene. The first method is to add the RF Mesh Importer manually: 1. Select Items tab and add a Null object to the scene, or press CTRL+N. 2. Press p to open the object properties window. 3. Select Deform tab. 4. Add the RF Mesh Importer displacement plug-in. 5. Open the GUI by double-clicking on the RF Mesh Importer plug-in. 6. Click on the File Path button and select one .bin file from the sequence. The plug-in tries to recognize the name of the mesh and the padding size from the file name, and the start and end frame of the sequence. When the mesh is loaded successfully, the null object is renamed to the name of the mesh. The other way to add a RealFlow mesh object is by using the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in which executes the above steps automatically. Note: Using Next Limit Plug-in Manager is the preferred way. Without Next Limit Plug-in Manager the mesh object is saved with .lwo path to the scene file and LW gives missing file error on load. If Next Limit Plug-in Manager is added then it saves a [mesh_name].lwo file to the folder where the mesh sequence can be located and LW loads the scene successfully.

Add the RF Mesh Importer displacement plug-in.

A custom loader plug-in is used for parsing .bin mesh files and convert them to LW object frame by frame which is added automatically with the RealFlow plug-ins. For keeping the surface settings between the frames, the plug-in writes and reads a .srf surface file to the Object Folder in each iteration. A Custom Surface file can be set for the mesh. Because of this unique loading mechanism, the caching feature of the particle systems cannot be used for meshes. Note: Do not use the same name (filename) when importing multiple mesh sequences to the same scene because objects could not be identified for surfaces. Start/End frames are set automatically after a correct file path is given. Later it can be changed, so the plug-in will only render the mesh inside the specified interval. Frames of the sequence can be shifted, the current frame can be locked, and also the whole sequence can be inverted.

RF Mesh Importer plug-in parameters.

The parameters of the RF Mesh Importer setup window are the following:

File Path: the path of one of the RealFlow mesh files from the .bin or .lwo sequence. Name: read-only field. The name of the mesh comes from the name of the RealFlow mesh
file. Recognized automatically when opening a mesh file.

Padding: padding size of the RealFlow mesh file. Recognized automatically when opening a
mesh file. Object Folder: path of the directory where the mesh surface file (.srf) is generated. Its default value is the directory where the .bin sequence can be located. Custom Surface: defines a .srf surface file which will be used as the mesh surface. Blur Length: affects motion blur quantity. RealFlow stores the mesh information of the previous frame into each mesh as an endomorph (speed). The plug-in will morph in

between frames and allows different motion blur settings for each mesh through the Blur Lenght multiplier.

Start/End Frame: the start and end frame of the sequence. Offset: the shifting of the imported sequence. Lock Current Frame: keeps the current frame displayed. Invert Sequence: inverts the file sequence.
Every vertex of a mesh has a velocity and texture UV attribute. These can be set on the Vertices tab of the RF Mesh Importer window. The user can define for every attribute that he or she wants to keep the original value stored in the mesh file (Keep), wants to override it by a custom expression (Add) or does not want any value for the attribute (No).

RF Mesh Importer attribute parameters.

Note: When we importing a mesh from RealFlow into LightWave, the UV Map is applied to the mesh if there is a gizmo texture daemon applied in the RealFlow scene.

UV applied in RealFlow with a texture gizmo over the mesh.

Network rendering is not possible with the mesh importer displacement plug-in because the object replace command is not allowed for the nodes. For network render the RF Mesh Replacement plugin can be used which can be added with the Add Replacement button and removed with the Remove Replacement button. The replacement plug-in has its own interface and settings. After changing any parameters of the mesh importer plug-in the replacement plug-in can be synchronized with the Refresh Replacement button.

RF Mesh Replacement
The RF Mesh Replacement plug-in loads .bin or .lwo RealFlow mesh sequences. Replacement plugin works only in render time thats why if only the replacement plug-in is applied to an object then the mesh is not animated in the viewport. Because the replacement plug-in doesnt evaluate between two frames, motion blur can not be rendered with it. To reach complete functionality using replacement plug-in together with the RF Mesh Importer plug-in is suggested. If network render is required the replacement plug-in is the only way to do. The replacement plug-in can be added from the RF Mesh importer interface, or can be added manually with the following steps: 1. Select an object. 2. Press p to open the object properties window. 3. Select RF Mesh Replacement from the Object Replacement plug-in list. The parameters are the same as for the RF Mesh Importer plug-in.

RF Mesh Replacement plug-in interface.

TUTORIAL (How to import a RealFlow mesh into LightWave)

1- The easiest way to import a mesh from RealFlow in LightWave is by using the Next Limit Plug-In Manager master plug-in. Open the master plug-in window by pressing CTRL+Q and select the Next Limit Manager plug-in from the list.

Add Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in.

2- Double-click on the Next Limit Plug-in Manager to display the user interface and select the Mesh tab. 3- Click on the File Path button to choose the mesh sequence generated in RealFlow. Any of the .bin files can be selected.

Selecting a BIN file from the mesh sequence.

4- The Name and Padding values are set by the file name. When this is not correct, set the real padding size with the slicer. The Object Folder is set to the location of the .bin files by default. LWO object files will be generated to this folder. 5- Press the Add button and the mesh will be loaded in the Layout viewport. 6- The user interface of the RF Mesh Importer plug-in is displayed on the screen after the mesh is loaded successfully. Here you can set how the mesh object behaves in the scene.

Mesh loaded in LightWave viewport.

7- The table on the Next Limit Plug-in Managers Mesh tab shows the RealFlow mesh objects. The parameter window can be opened with the Edit button for a selected object, or removed from the scene with the Delete button.

TUTORIAL (Rendering a RealFlow mesh that contains multiple fluids)

This example shows a basic approach to rendering RealFlow meshes by creating a custom textured surface. It describes a setup that is able to render two fluids. 1- Import the mesh sequence into LightWave Layout. The imported mesh object contains a weight map for each fluid which represents the contribution of the fluid by every vertex. These vertex maps make it possible to render complex, multi-type fluids.

Mesh loaded in Layout viewport.

2- Open Surface Editor from the menu or by pressing F5. 3- Select the meshs Default surface and click on the T button next to the Color setting. This will open the Texture Editor window.

Surface Editor.

4- Add a Gradient type layer for every fluid with the Add Layer combo box. 5- Select the first layer and set the Input Parameter field to Weight Map. 6- Select the weight map from the list which belongs to the fluid. The texture weight maps from the RealFlow mesh file are generated with the name of [object_name]_txw[fluid_index].

Texture Editor. Adjusting the ramp.

7- You can control the layers alpha value with the weight map. For that you need two keys: one for the start and one for the end position. The start is present so you need to add a new key and move it to the end position. 8- Select the key on the end position and set the Alpha value to 0.0%. 9- Set the required color.

Ramp for blending meshes.

10- Repeat steps 4-9 on the second layer. 11- Click on the Use Texture button. Render the current frame or the whole scene on the Render tab or by pressing F9 or F10.

Result of the rendering.

RF Mesh Exporter
The RF Mesh Exporter plug-in writes mesh data into RealFlow .bin sequence from LightWave Layout. The exporter can be reached in the Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-ins Mesh Export tab. The mesh .bin file contains the vertices and faces of the object, the texture UV coordinates, weight if the mesh consists of more fluids and additional velocity vectors for each vertex.

RF Mesh Exporter setup interface.

The setup parameters are the following: Item: LightWave object which will be exported. Directory: path of the directory where the RealFlow mesh file sequence will be written. Name: name of the mesh. Used in the .bin file name. Padding: padding used in the .bin file name. Start/End Frame: indicates the frames to export. Inc Frame: indicates the increment to generate the frames when exporting. Export Texture: adds UV to the .bin file.

Number of Fluids: a mesh can hold more fluids. Each fluid can have a vertex map to define which vertex belongs to the given fluid. The name of the map must be RF_Mesh_Weight_[index], where [index] is the fluid index, started from 1. Values are floats between 0 and 1. Export velocity: adds velocity information to the vertices. Recalculate: when this option is turned on, the plug-in tries to calculate the velocity vectors by the current frame and next frame vertex positions. Vertices can be identified with their indices between the frames, thats why the calculation can result improper velocity vectors. If this option is turned off, the plug-in reads the velocity from a vertex map. The name of the map must be: RF_Mesh_Speed.

Export: starts exporting the mesh sequence.

RF Mesh Exporter tab parameters.

TUTORIAL (How to export LightWave object to BIN)

1- In order to export mesh from LightWave you need to add the Next Limit Plug-in manager master plug-in to the scene. Open the master plug-in window by pressing CTRL+Q and select the Next Limit Manager plug-in from the list. 2- Double-click on the Next Limit Plug-in Manager to display the user interface and select the Mesh Export tab.

Exporting mesh from LightWave.

3- Select the object you want to export to BIN sequence. 4- Click on the Directory button and select folder to export the .bin files. 5- Indicate padding in the file name, start / end frame parameters and export information (UV, velocity, etc.). 6- Press the Export button to write BIN sequence.

FAQ

Why isnt the RealFlow plugin installed in my LightWave?

Make sure you have installed the correct version for your LightWave into the correct folder.

Why arent the particles loading in Lightwave?

Check the path for particles and their padding size.

Why arent the meshes loading in Lightwave?

Check the path for the mesh and its padding size.

Can you import RealWaves as BIN and SD files?

Yes, you can. In order to import BIN files you need import them as mesh, and if you use the SD file you need import them as SD.

Why arent the particles exported from Lightwave?

Please, check that you have the object selected in the ITEM and the path where you want to export it.

Why do I have a missing file error when loading a scene with a RealFlow mesh?
Lightwave assigns a .lwo file for each object in the scene. The RealFlow meshes are loaded from the .bin sequence by a custom loader plug-in which doesnt create any .lwo file for the mesh. The problem has been fixed in version 1.2.2. The Next Limit Plug-in Manager master plug-in has to be added to the scene which writes out a .lwo file to each mesh on save.