DevBlog (Patreon)

Hi!

I had planned to post something about this on monday, but as you may guess that not everything worked like planned, let me tell you!

My plan was to continue work on Frost, and a Good friend even allowed me to work at his place while i don't have a desk at home.

I have all game files of Frost on my Hard drive inside my computer, but i save all Source files on my Homeserver. Which i could not access while at my buddy.

So i decided a short break of Frost would be good, so i made a few animation sets i knew i would need for Frost, and i gave my Skunk model a bit more ♥

So for showing you my "Fluid" technique. 

I made a Little Minigame this week, i want to release it tomorrow or sunday depending on when i get my desk and worksation going,

so i can get back right to work on Frost!

I still want to show you the images i made for The "Fluid dynamic" so i will post this devblog in the comming days (hope to get my Workstation here working tomorrow)

About Animating Fluids:

There are many ways to Animate Fluids, i tested some of them and came up with this Workflow.

1. Simulation

Pros:

• can look really nice
• High Detail
• Pyisical "Accurate"

Cons:

• Takes forever
• Big File size
• high Frametime
• Hard to artdirect

When using Simulations i use the *.ABC format that allows for importing Vertex animations as Animation Sequences inside Unreal.

This very short sequence already eats up 25 mb, and needed an hour to setup and Calculate.

This and the reason that it is hard to model or to simulate it into a specific way made me think about a different solution.

Vertex Animation:

This is a more Primitive but way faster method.

I first model a Rough mesh on top of the pose i want the fluid interaction to happen.

This image shows the Rough base Model

The i cut those individial Stands into unique meshes,

Those meshes i Animate using a FFD Function, where i can define the end locations of the model and make it move.

Then just add some Thickness and export it as Alembic.

This essentialy works the same way the Simulated version works, but it is much smaller in general.

Pro:

• Small Filesize
• Good Artdirection

Cons:

• Animating with FFD needs to be refined

Realtime:

For some dynamic Fluid i am using a custom Actor that uses a Simple "Rope" simulated by Points.

Pros:

• Realtime (Duh)
• Ingame Collisions and more dynamic

Cons:

• Limited "StickyNess"

In the end i am using all three of those depending on the situation,

But mostly:

• Vertex Animation
• Realtime

due to the possibility to art direct better and its much faster in most cases.

About the Fluid Showcase

It is a Little game in the style of "ToonArcade" where you can bukakke two fluffy skunk girls.

It was kinda good to have a short break from Frost since i worked on that for now like five weeks strength.

It was also nice to Finish the Skunk Character, and to make those two variations of it.

I always loved the Characters Stacy and Tracy from the Artist Eric Schwarz, so  for this Minigame i tried to remake them in my style, but i think i better name them differently ^^

Will be posting Tomorrow or Sunday depending on how fast i get my desk, then you get some well needed fluffy Fun! :3

♥u

Your furrier,