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blender-simulation

Design & creation

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Updated 10-16 19:38

About this skill

Simulation

The execution model is in blender-core. Procedural sim zones are in blender-geometry-nodes.

One call

scripts/sim_setup.py -- --rigid --active Crate1 Crate2 --passive Floor --density 500 --frames 1 120 --bake --to-keys
scripts/sim_setup.py -- --cloth Flag --preset cotton --pin Pin --colliders Pole --bake
scripts/sim_setup.py -- --gn-cloth Sheet --colliders Table --set Bendiness=0.5 Stretchiness=0.1 --bake

--bake steps through every frame in order (this works headless for point caches and GN simulation zones) and reports final positions and min_z, so you can verify contact. --to-keys turns rigid-body motion into keyframes for engines.

Choose the solver

Need Use
Falling/stacking/destruction Rigid Body (Bullet). Pre-fracture with Cell Fracture (extension) or GN Voronoi
Clothing, flags, drapes (production-proven) Classic Cloth modifier + Collision modifiers
New node-based cloth/hair, custom forces, procedural setups Cloth Dynamics (Experimental) / Hair Dynamics assets (5.2, XPBD)
Liquids, smoke, fire Mantaflow fluid domain + flow/effector (fluid.bake_all)
Hair grooms Curves objects + hair node assets (procedural_hair_node_assets), Hair Dynamics for motion
Growth, trails, custom per-frame logic GN Simulation zone
Soft jiggle for games bones with spring/jiggle in-engine, or Wiggle-style constraints baked to keys

Rigid bodies

  • Real scale and real mass matter: mass = volume × density (wood 500–700, concrete 2400, steel 7850, plastic 950 kg/m³). The script computes it.
  • Collision shape: CONVEX_HULL for dynamic objects (fast, stable), MESH only for passive concave colliders, and primitives (BOX, SPHERE, CAPSULE) when they fit.
  • Stability: substeps 10 and iterations 10 (set by the script). Use a small collision margin (1 mm). Avoid objects starting interpenetrated.
  • Export: bake to keyframes (--to-keys; the built-in rigidbody.bake_to_keyframes needs a UI, so the script samples matrix_world itself), then export the actions (blender-export-pipelines).

Classic cloth

  • Presets (from Blender's): cotton, denim, leather, rubber, silk. The mesh needs even quad density (2–5 cm edges for clothing). Use a subdivided plane or retopologized garment, never ngons.
  • Pinning: vertex group with weight 1 = pinned (settings.vertex_group_mass). Animate pinned verts with hooks/armature.
  • Collisions: colliders get a COLLISION modifier (thickness 1–5 mm), plus self-collision for folds. Raise quality (steps) for fast motion.
  • Apply cloth as a shape (modifier_apply_as_shapekey) or bake to an Alembic/point cache for render. Games: bake to bones, or apply a static drape.

Node-based dynamics (5.2, experimental)

  • Assets live in datafiles/assets/nodes/geometry_nodes_dynamics_assets.blend: Cloth Dynamics (Experimental), Hair Dynamics, Collider, Set Effector, Custom Force, Custom Effector. The script appends them.
  • Cloth inputs include Pin Group (attribute), Stretchiness, Bendiness, Substeps (5), Constraint Steps (15), Mass, Friction, Collision Radius, Linear Damping, Gravity, Tearing (+ mode/threshold), Effectors Collection, Effectors (bundle).
  • Colliders: put a Collider modifier on each collider object and add those objects to the collection fed into Effectors Collection (the script does both).
  • Hair: Add → Empty Hair sets up the surface + Capture Rest Geometry. Hair Dynamics reads the rest/deformed surface through geometry bundles.
  • Limits (5.2): no self-collision yet, no built-in wind/turbulence (build a Custom Force). Interfaces may change, so pin the Blender version in production.
  • The solver itself (GeometryNodeXPBDSolver) takes a World bundle, Delta Time, Substeps, Constraint Iterations. Building directly on it is advanced; start from the assets.

Fluids (Mantaflow) quick setup

Domain object (FLUID modifier fluid_type="DOMAIN", domain_type="LIQUID"|"GAS"), resolution 64 preview / 128–256 final, cache directory set and cache_type="ALL" for headless; flow objects fluid_type="FLOW" (flow_type LIQUID/SMOKE/FIRE, flow_behavior INFLOW/GEOMETRY); obstacles EFFECTOR. Bake with bpy.ops.fluid.bake_all() under a context override with the domain active. This is slow. Test at low resolution first.

Rules

  • Simulations are frame-rate and scale dependent. Set scene.render.fps and the scale before tuning.
  • Always bake before rendering/exporting, and never rely on viewport playback order.
  • GN simulation zones: bake per modifier (mod.bakes, object.geometry_node_bake_single), or step frames sequentially (script) in background.
  • Point caches in background: stepping frames from frame_start fills the cache. ptcache.bake_all(bake=True) needs a valid context.
  • Verify with look(mode="frames") plus the numbers (min_z ≈ the collider top = contact, no tunnelling).

Gotchas

  • Objects tunnelling through colliders: thin colliders, too few substeps, or too-fast motion. Thicken, raise substeps/quality, or use a bigger collision distance.
  • Exploding cloth at frame 1: starting interpenetration or a zero-area face. Run blender-asset-qa, offset the start.
  • Rigid body world cache ranges are separate from the scene range (the script syncs them).
  • Changing anything (frame range, settings) invalidates caches. Re-bake.