Particles as water drops/splashes?

[chiess]

Hi,

I found several topics which cover the rendering part of water and water splashes. Unfortunately, all of them are talking about particle fluids or flip fluids etc.

I was wondering, what approach should I use when I only have particles (popnet)?

Should I use only spheres and assign a water-like shader to them?

Should I use metaballs as mesh and use a water-like shader on those?

What is the "usual" approach to achieve realistic looking water drops (besides having the appropriate particle animation).

For example:

I have an object that moves around and changes direction on a random base. This object was dipped into water (or any other liquid substance) before and is supposed to be wet. Water (particles) drips off and splashes away on certain movements.

My initial idea is using metaballs as geometry and an appropriate shader, but I am not sure if there is a different and/or better approach for such common topic?

If possible I just want to explore into the "right" direction straight away, instead of testing many different solutions and ending up with an unsatisfying result

Thank you,

Chris

[chiess]

or is it better to work with FLIP fluids instead for above mentioned example?

[Skybar]

You can mesh normal particles the same way you mesh FLIP if you want.

[chiess]

yea, I think the particle fluid surface node is what I'll be going for.

[Skybar]

You can mesh with the new VDB workflow as well, if you are using 12.5. Just create a basic FLIP setup from the shelf to see how it is set up . You probably need to use a Point SOP or something before though, on your particles, to define a pscale before meshing; otherwise they'll be really big and it wont work right.