Preferences Menu Settings
This documentation topic will detail the settings, info, and links in the FLIP Fluids Preferences Menu. This menu can be found in Blender's Add-on preferences menu.
- How do I find the FLIP Fluids Preferences Menu?
- Addon Info
- General Preferences
- Mixbox Installation
- Presets Installation
- Help and Support
- Info and Links
Navigate to the Blender Add-ons preferences with Edit > Preferences and select the Add-ons tab. You will be able to find the FLIP Fluids addon preferences by entering FLIP Fluids in the search box.
Shortcut: Use the Help > FLIP Fluids > FLIP Fluids Preferences operator to quickly navigate to the addon preferences menu.
This section is common to all addons and displays information about the installed addon. If you are sending us a message and are not sure which version of the addon you have installed, send us a screenshot of this info section. Feel free to send us a message at support[at]flipfluids.com anytime!
| Description | This field will display a description label of our addon: A FLIP Fluid Simulation Tool for Blender. This label will be followed by the exact version number, release type (such as release, demo, or experimental), and the release date. |
| Location | This field displays where you can find our addon within Blender. Most of the addon's operations can be accessed using the FLIP Fluid operator found in the physics properties menu: Properties > Physics > FLIP Fluid. |
| File | This field displays the location of the addon files on your computer. |
| Author | This field displays the names and contact info of the authors of the FLIP Fluids addon! |
| Version | This field displays the version number of the addon. |
| Internet | Links to our documentation/wiki. |
The General tab displays the main preferences settings of the FLIP Fluids addon.
UI options to control how to display the Domain settings, documentation links, and the FLIP Fluids sidebar Helper Menu.
The simulation Domain object contains many settings to customize and control the simulation. Two domain settings view modes are offered in the preferences. The default tabbed view displays a single panel category at a time and the panel to display can be selected in the tab selection. The older classic view lists all of the settings in a vertical stack of panel categories.
| Enable Tabbed Domain Settings | Enable the tabbed domain settings view. If enabled, domain panel categories will be displayed using a tab header selector. If disabled, the classic default view will display all domain panel categories in a vertical stack. |
| Display Documentation Links in UI | Display relevant documentation and troubleshooting links in the UI. Documentation links will open in your default web browser. Reading the documentation links will help you understand common fluid simulation concepts and help you master the addon! |
The FLIP Fluids Helper Menu contains helpful operators and settings to enhance your workflow. The Helper Menu can be found in the FLIP Fluids tab within Blender's sidebar area in the 3d viewport (expand with the hotkey 'N').
| Enable Helper Sidebar | Enable the FLIP Fluids Helper Sidebar menu. |
| Panel Category | Set the name of the helper toolbox tab (FLIP Fluids by default). Tips: If you have many addons installed, the sidebar menu can become cluttered with many tabs. If this is the case, you may want to shorten the name of our helper menu, to FF for example. You may also insert the helper menu into an existing tab by using the same name as that tab. For example, setting the name to Tool will place our helper menu within Blender's Tool tab. |
Preferences related to the FLIP Fluids sidebar Command Line Tools.
| Autosave Blend file before launching command line operators | Command line operators require the Blend file to be saved for changes to take effect in the command line process. If enabled, the Blend file will be automatically saved when using command line operators so that manual saving is not necessary. Enabling this option is recommended to prevent accidental render issues. |
| Re-launch Bake After Crash | When using the command line bake operator, if a bake fails due to a crash or an error, attempt to automatically re-launch and resume the baking process. This value is the maximum number of attempts that the addon will try to resume the baking process. Set to a value greater than 0 to activate. |
| Play alarm after simulation finishes | Play an alarm sound when the simulation baking process completes. The alarm will sound on both a successful bake as well as a bake where an error is encountered. This feature may not work correctly if a Blender crash is encountered. The alarm may not sound when running a command line bake depending on OS version and/or Blender version. |
| Test Alarm (operator) | Click to test and play the alarm sound. |
You can replace the sound file with your own custom alarm sound:
- Navigate to your Blender addons folder. The location of the addon files can be found in the Addon Info > File section above.
- Place your sound file in the
addons/flip_fluids_addon/resources/sounds/alarm/directory.- Not all file formats and encodings have been tested and support may be limited. Use the Ogg or Wav format if possible.
- Edit the
sound_data.jsonfile with a text editor and set the filename and length (in seconds).
Current bugs in Blender or stability issues in Blender can affect some features of the FLIP Fluids addon. Since these features are affected by an issue that is outside of our control, these features will be hidden by default. Some experimental addon features or newer features that are currently in a test-phase will also be hidden by default. Enable the developer tools option to unhide these features.
Current Issues: An open bug in Blender (T88811 (03-jun-2021)) that can cause frequent render crashes or incorrect renders will affect the following features of the FLIP Fluids addon and are hidden by default:
- Rendering of surface, whitewater, or fluid particle attributes including color blending simulations and motion blur rendering.
- These features are located in the Domain > Surface > Geometry Attributes panel, Domain > Whitewater > Geometry Attributes panel, Domain > Particles panel, and in the Fluid and Inflow object properties.
- See Domain Attributes documentation for more information on attributes in Blender.
- Rendering variable viscosity simulation features.
- These features are located in the Domain > FLIP Fluid World > Viscosity panel as well as in the Fluid and Inflow object properties.
Workaround: When using these features, rendering from the command line will be necessary to prevent this bug and for complete render stability. The FLIP Fluids sidebar helper menu contains command line tools to help you automatically set up and launch a command line render (read more).
| Enable Developer Tools | Enable to unlock features that may be affected by issues related to known bugs in Blender, issues related to Blender stability, or addon features that are experimental or in a test phase. |
The FLIP Fluids addon contains two versions of the simulation engine:
- The Debug Engine: This engine is slightly slower, but is able to generate errors that may be helpful to us if you are experiencing a sudden crash during simulation.
- The Release Engine (default): This engine is faster, about 10% - 15% faster than the debug engine for medium to large simulations. However, this version of the engine may be unable to generate any errors after a simulation crash. If you are experiencing a persistent simulation crash at the same point in a simulation, this is likely a bug and you may be able to generate an error message by switching to the debug engine. You may also send us a .blend file that reproduces the crash to support[at]flipfluids.com and we would be glad to check it out!
Our FLIP Fluids simulation engine is incredibly stable and simulation crashes unrelated to hardware issues are quite rare. You will likely never need to switch to debug mode - this setting is mainly for the developers.
| Engine Debug Mode | Enable to switch to using the debug version of the engine. When disabled, the faster release mode of the engine will be used. This value must be set before starting or resuming a bake. |
If enabled, save information about your system hardware, Blender installation, and simulation setup into the Blend file. Saving this info into the Blend file helps improve turnaround time when requesting technical support and improves accuracy when diagnosing issues. To view the type of info that is saved, use the Help > FLIP Fluids > Copy System & Blend Info operator. If disabled, this info will be cleared upon the next save of your Blend file, but it may be required to provide additional items and info when requesting support.
This option enables features used by the developers to assist in technical support request but may also be useful to you during issue troubleshooting. If enabled, some of these features will be included as operators under the FLIP Fluids sidebar > Technical Support Tools menu.
Some features of the FLIP Fluids addon may be affected by current bugs in Blender. If these features are detected as being used, an info box containing information, workarounds, and links will be displayed in the addon UI. These options can be enabled to dismiss these warning or errors and prevent them from being displayed.
| Dismiss render crash bug warnings | Dismiss warnings in UI when features are enabled that can trigger a bug in Blender (T88811) that can cause frequent render crashes or incorrect renders. The workaround to this issue is to render from the command line. See the FLIP Fluids sidebar helper menu for tools to help automatically launch a cmd render. |
| Dismiss persistent data warnings | Dismiss warning in the UI when the Cycles Persistent Data option is enabled. This render option is not compatible with the simulation meshes and can cause render crashes, incorrect renders, or static renders. The workaround to this issue is to render from the command line. See the FLIP Fluids sidebar helper menu for tools to help automatically launch a cmd render. |
| Dismiss 'Export Animated Mesh' parented relation hint | Dismiss hints about enabling the 'Export Animated Mesh' option in the FLIP object type UI when parented relations are detected. The 'Export Animated Mesh' option is required for any animation that is more complex than just keyframed loc/rot/scale or F-Curves, such as parented relations, armatures, animated modifiers, deformable meshes, etc. This option is not needed for static objects. |
The FLIP Fluids Mixbox plugin is an optional feature set that simulates the physically based mixing of colors to help you create vibrant multi-color simulations. Refer to the FLIP Fluids Mixbox Installation Instructions.
The FLIP Fluids Addon preset scenes library package can now be installed into the Blender Asset Browser. This addon feature is currently in an initial test phase. Refer to the Preset Library Installation and Uninstallation Instructions for more information.
This section contains useful support links as well as operators to help report a bug to GitHub and for retrieving your system information. Reports can also be sent through the marketplace messaging systems or to support[at]flipfluids.com.
| Report a Bug (GitHub) | This operator will open the FLIP Fluids GitHub issue tracker and pre-fill the _New Issue_ form with your system and version information. Not all information may be found out depending on system and Blender version. A GitHub account is required to post on the issue tracker. This operator can also be found in the Blender > Help > FLIP Fluids menu. |
| Copy System & Blend Info | This operator will copy information about your system hardware, Blender installation, Blend file, and simulation setup to the clipboard. Paste this info when sending us a message through the marketplace messaging systems, support[at]flipfluids.com, or elsewhere. Not all information may be found depending on system and Blender version. Some information is related to the current Blend file and is recommended to use within the Blend file that you are experiencing an issue. This operator can also be found in the Blender > Help > FLIP Fluids menu. |
Info and links about the FLIP Fluids addon and our social media pages.
