About Fluid Sim Tests
I worked as the technical designer and programmer for a set of fluid simulation tests in Unreal Engine 5, using Niagara and its Fluids plugin to test the possible use of these technologies in real-time or baked cardiovascular and general medical simulation.
Progress was presented on a weekly basis, and also included a research presentation that was periodically updated based on progress and new information/data coming up.
Development
After the research was complete, I ran tests with Niagara Fluids and its capabilities for real-time simulation. The main issue was that, for the purposes presented, it would have to be heavily scaled back for running in real time. Throughout this process I created:
– A faux liquid material that could be driven by a blueprint component’s positions (e.g. to simulate a syringe pushing fluid through),
– Spline meshes that could handle collisions the real time fluid simulations,
– Dynamic closures/blockages that were detected by a particle counter that could show liquid flow through the mesh,
– SDF-focused “metaballs” that were later used for both wave simulation for water materials, along with for sticking actors together when they got close together with “force field” style attractions.
– A custom implementation of a cheaper “fluid” sim using regular Niagara particles, SDF’s, and decals for the purposes of a user-controlled source of fluid.
During this time, I also experimented with testing bugs and potential fixes for some of the issues with Niagara Fluids in Unreal 5.6, but due to other focuses coming up, they were largely shelved.
Ultimately, the original need for this work was shelved, but it was still a good project due to all of what I got to learn and work with for it.
CHRIS BRUNS 