Paint sim lumpy paint on cap mesh

[stevesideas]

I started off the new project and sim with a paint preset. I then changed this to a cap mesh because I want a bottle to appear from below and push through the surface.

The problem is that when I simulate I end up with dips in the paint surface after it has settled from being filled. It then kind of shimmers strangely and doesn't look smooth.

Can anyone help?

First image is just after filling and second one is the top of the bottle pushing through where there paint surface is very lumpy. Settings below also.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ah, looks like you are using a high number of steps per frame already. So one approach would be to go even higher on the Steps, but this could slow the sim down, so how about smoothing the Liquid from the Input rollout's Grid Channel smoothing?

[stevesideas]

I'll try that. What would you consider to be a higher steps per frame value? Currently it's at 5. Do you think I should push it to double?

Also, would the surface tension strength make a difference to the bumpiness?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Oh, there is no magic number for the Steps - it depends on the scene, but in this case I vote for remedying the symptoms using the different smoothing methods instead of the cause because it would be faster.

The surface tension could smooth out smaller chunks of liquid, but for larger bodies of water I expect it to rather create a tug of war between the particles, resulting in even more clumping - it's just a speculation, but watch out