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.
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 stable, 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 FLIP Fluids addon contains a few preferences for configuration.
If you're new to the FLIP Fluids addon or new to fluid simulation, we recommend trying out these settings.
| Beginner Friendly Mode | Beginner Friendly Mode will show only the most important settings used in basic simulations and hide the more advanced settings. Enabling this mode will simplify the UI which will help you focus on the settings that matter the most while you learn. |
| 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! |
These settings can also be activated through the FLIP Fluids Helper Menu.
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 toolshelf 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.
| 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. |
| 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. 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 or whitewater attributes including color blending simulations and motion blur rendering.
- These features are located in the Domain > FLIP Fluid Surface > Geometry Attributes panel as well as 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 or issues related to Blender stability. |
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. |
- Enables functionality to rename the addon folder from the default
flip_fluids_addonname in the Blender addons directory. - For advanced installation only. Can result in errors or incorrect behavior if misused.
- Directory name must not include special characters, including periods ('.').
- Can be used to install multiple versions of the FLIP Fluids addon alongside each other.
- It is very important that only one version of the addon is ever enabled at any time, or errors and incorrect behavior can result.
- To switch between versions, first disable the current version, enable the desired version, and either restart Blender or reload the .blend file.
| Allow Addon Directory Renaming | Enable to allow renaming of the default FLIP Fluids addon folder name. |
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.
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 Info | This operator will copy your system and version information 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 out depending on system and Blender version. 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.
- Documentation and Wiki
- Recommended Documentation Topics
- FLIP Fluids Homepage
- Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
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 | Dissmiss 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. |