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. |
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. |
| Enable Linux Flatpak Compatibility | If enabled, command line tools will launch Blender using the command instead of using Blender's binary path. This option is only relevant and supported on Linux OS. Notes and Limitations: Due to the sandboxed nature of Flatpak installations of Blender, full command line tools compatibility may not be possible without additional system configurations. Command line tool operators rely on accessing either the gnome-termal and sh, or xterm programs within Blender in order to automatically launch the generated shell scripts. Due to sandboxing, it may not be possible to access these programs within Blender. In these cases where cmd features are not supported within a Flatpak installation, it will be required to use the copy command operators and manually paste the command into a terminal. Some cmd features will require access to the flatpak program in order to launch Blender instances, which may not be possible due to sandboxing. Permissions to access the flatpak program will be required to use these features. |
| 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 exact location of the addon files can be found in the Addon Info > File section above.
- Place your sound file in the
extensions/user_default/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).
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.
| 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.
