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Flood simulation


Strife

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Hi, I am new to this forum and a first-timer using Houdini. For my project, I need to do a flood simulation using Houdini. I tried researching on flip fluids and did some testing. Can anybody help getting me started?

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As this sounds very much like an over ambitious project for a first-time houdini user I would recommend to perhaps focus on something a little smaller first, or find ways to fake it so you do not have to sim everything... getting inspiration from techniques in games can help. Depending on scale the Maya Techniques: Flow workflows shows a great way of using sprites with animated water textures on it to flood a large area (from the scene when the dam breaks in LOTR). It's kind of the idea of creeping sprites over a surface.

Some tips in general:

define your scale, are you flooding a city, a hallway, a kitchen,...?

define the speed: is it a slow wave, or is it a rapid flow in a river?

define your resources: do you have access to a renderfarm? How much memory do you have in your computer(s)?

define your shots: do you have close ups or is it all wide angle?

The reason why is because you do not want to sim everything at once. Big sims like that are broken up into many different parts. There is the main body of water that you will sim with a flip solver. Then there are the splashes that will be solved around each collision object. Then there is the white water, the foam, the spray from the crests. Potentially some mist through volumes. Basically a lot of different elements that you sim separately and then merge together, either in the scene or in comp.

If you have close ups, it might be worth simming that completely separately to get the detail you need.

Also you can completely fake things. You can simulate a splash in a sperate scene, render out a couple of variations and comp them in as if they were elements/a collage.

Have a look at some of the breakdown for hereafter posted by scanline, it is excellent work (they are among the best in the industry when it comes to water sims):

Note how much different elements go into one shot. To get that amount of detail it is all about layering.

Perhaps give us some more info about your scene and your approach and we'll advise you with suggestions and potential hacks/tricks/shortcuts so you do not have to simulate everything.

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