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Status: ✅ Fully Supported

Fluid simulations, including those created with Mantaflow, are fully supported on Renderjuice and should work as expected out of the box 🎉 without much hassle.

Key Requirements: The key requirement is that you bake your fluid simulations and include the cache files when uploading your scene. Since fluid simulations rely on cache data that isn’t automatically embedded in the .blend file, you must zip your fluid caches along with your scene before uploading. If you’re seeing E:/ or similar in your cache path, you’ve not set the path correctly and it is still absolutely linked.

Here’s an incorrect and absolutely linked example:

Incorrect and absolutely linked cache path

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Example Files

Below are example .blend files demonstrating the correct and incorrect setups for fluid simulations.

Unbaked Example Incorrect ❌

Unbaked .blend file with fluid simulation

Baked Example Correct ✅

Zipped .blend file with baked fluid simulation cache

The examples feature a simple fluid simulation setup, showcasing how baking affects the simulation during rendering.

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Instructions

To use fluid simulations with Renderjuice (and likely other render farms), you need to bake the simulation and include the cache files when uploading. The most common mistakes here are forgetting to Save after hitting Free All and Bake All or forgetting to make sure the cache paths are relative. In the case that your paths are incorrect, we may either try to automatically fix them or your render might just miss the fluid simulation so be careful!

1

Set Up Your Fluid Simulation

Create your scene with the fluid simulation. This might involve setting up a domain, inflow objects, and configuring the simulation settings as desired.

2

Bake the Fluid Simulation

After setting up your simulation, you need to bake it.

To bake the fluid simulation:

  1. Select the domain object.
  2. Go to the Physics Properties panel.
  3. Under Fluid settings, navigate to the Settings section.
  4. Click on Bake All or Bake Data (depending on your Blender version). Or Free All in the case that you’ve already baked.

Physics Tab (1) Cache Path - note the `//` in the path. (2) Free All and Bake All Button (3) Bake Path Folder Icon

In this diagram we point out the following:

  1. the // is Blender’s way of saying “relative to the current file”, you may either type in your path here using //my-cache-folder-name or use the folder icon to navigate to the cache location. If you have a drive like C:\ or D:\ here you’ve not set the path correctly and it is still absolutely linked.
  2. Click on Free All and Bake All to bake the simulation.
  3. You can use the folder icon to navigate to the cache location (which we elaborate on below).
3

Choose Cache Storage Location

By default, Blender will pick a random temporary directory for you if you haven’t saved your .blend file yet which we don’t want!

  • Verify the Cache Directory: In the Fluid settings under Cache, verify the Cache Directory path. It should be set to a folder that you can include when uploading.
  • Ensure Cache Pathing is Correct: You should Free and Bake as needed so that the cache files are generated. Then make sure to save your .blend file. The last save ensures the pathing is persisted into the .blend and the bake step writes the cache out to the disk.

You can do this by either:

  • Typing in the path using //my-cache-folder-name
  • Using the GUI folder picker by pressing the folder icon (3 in the diagram above) to navigate to the cache location.

The name you set here does not matter, we only care that the path is relative.

When using the folder icon (via GUI), you should see something like this, note that you have to click on the Cog Icon to display the option to make the pathing relative.

When using the folder picker GUI, you *must* click on the Cog Icon to show the option for 'Relative Path'

4

Save Your Scene

After baking, make sure to save your .blend file. The baked simulation references are now part of your scene.

5

Zip Your Scene and Cache

Zip your .blend file along with the cache folder.

  • Ensure the Cache Folder is Included: The cache folder typically has a name like cache blob or similar and contains the baked simulation data.

Your zip file should have a structure similar to this, where your file is included in the zip with your selected cache folder. Note that these extensions may vary from case to case.

your_project.zip
|-- your_scene.blend
|-- cache/
    |-- fluid/
        |-- [simulation cache files].vdb
    |-- config/
        |-- [cache config files].uni
    |--mesh/
        |-- [simulation cache files].bobj.gz
6

Upload and Render

Upload your zipped file to Renderjuice and start your render.

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Checklist

  • Did you bake your fluid simulation?
  • Did you save your .blend file after baking?
  • Did you include the cache folder when zipping your project?
  • Is the cache directory path in Blender set correctly?
  • Are all necessary objects included in the bake?

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FAQ

Having trouble or something doesn’t seem right? Just chat with us—we’re happy to help and respond quickly!