buoy animation - any news on floating objects on ocean surface?

[olika]

I''m in talks with a new client right now, and the animation will involve a few buoys on the water surface.
Is there any news abouth how to handle floating objects?
Guess there will be some waves and the buoys will also be connected together. How to setup when they all should float nicely on the moving water surface?
How would you guys approach it?

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Unfortunately there is no integrated solution in Phoenix FD for this, but you could use pflow or tyFlow in order to do this.
You could run you simulation with velocity channel enabled and then use the velocities generated by the simulation to push the objects around.

Cheers,

[olika]

Hi Georgi,
thx for your answer, although i`m not sure if i understand it
When i did the Volvo Race Boat Animation, i cheated in a way that i simulated the ocean surface one time with waves then place some dummys on the surface of the water and baked the keyframes of the height motion and then linked the boat to it...
It kinda worked out but this technique won't work with my next project i'm afraid as it was a cheap cheat
Seems i always end up with that dependency loop between object and water. Doesn't need to be pushed around in a correct physical way but it needs to go up and down with the waves.
Wasn't there also a way to use a animated plane as the surface to work with and then put a layer of water on top?

[olika]

Made a little drawing of the issue, hope that helps to understand

[georgi.zhekov]

You could use the Pure ocean mode - which will show your roughly the way the water will move and animate the buoys based on that.
Then you can run your sim and adjust the animation if needed.

[olika]

thx georgi.zhekov ! will try to go that route!