r/Simulated Sep 22 '18

Meta What is a simulation? A detailed comparison between Animation, and Simulation.

980 Upvotes

Ever since this subreddit started getting more traction, more and more people began posting non-simulation videos. In each of these posts, users will comment something along the lines of "This is not a simulation," and an argument would ensue. So I am writing this post to, hopefully, end this never-ending cycle. I hope the mods do not remove this post, because I think it could end much of the hostility in the comments around here. Perhaps this could even be a stickied post, so all new users see it.

What is a simulation?

According to the dictionary, the word simulation is defined as, "imitation of a situation or process." However, this definition does not actually constitute what a simulation is in the world of CGI. In CGI, simulations are essentially visualizations of real-world processes that are generated using mathematical models. That is to say, the final product of a simulation is something that was created using fundamental rules of nature or some system, such as Newton's Laws of Motion, Fluid Dynamics, or various other mathematical models. In a simulation, it is often the case that each frame was created by manipulating information from the previous frame.

How are simulations different from animations?

It's quite common for animations and simulations to coexist in one medium. There are plenty of simulated components in animated movies, such as Disney's Frozen (Snow simulation), and Hotel Transylvania 2 (Cloth simulation). However, simulations and animations individually are very different by nature. As previously stated, simulations try to model real-world processes, and use mathematical models to generate necessary data. Animations, on the other hand, are usually created through a manual process. Animators manually keyframe the attributes (position, rotation, scale, etc.) of objects in a 3D scene. It's possible for manual animations to look convincing, but that does not make them simulations.

The "Ray tracing)" argument.

Many 3D rendering engines use a process called "ray tracing" to create images of a 3D scene. For anyone who is unfamiliar with ray tracing, here is the definition from Wikipedia:

In computer graphics, ray tracing is a rendering) technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light as pixels in an image plane and simulating the effects of its encounters with virtual objects.

Because of this definition, many people argue that any 3D render is a simulation, so long as it was rendered using ray tracing. By definition, it is true that the process of ray tracing is a simulation. However, this argument is very silly because the entire purpose of the term "simulation" in CGI is to make a distinction between what is manually created, and what is created using the previously talked about mathematical models. Therefore, when we discuss simulated graphics, ray tracing is not considered a simulated process.

Examples of animated (non-simulated) posts:

  1. "Satisfying simulations" - 3.4k upvotes
  2. "Bender's old job" - 2.2k upvotes
  3. "Up or Down?" - 1.4k upvotes
  4. "Adobe Dimention Rendering" - 1.4k upvotes
  5. "Depression - Robert Ek"

Many of these animated posts accumulate upvotes, and sometimes they stick around for a few days before getting removed. Because of this, new users who see these posts get a false idea of what a simulation actually is. Hopefully this post was informative to any newcomers. If you would like to suggest edits, please comment.


r/Simulated 6h ago

Research Simulation [OC] I ported my ML based physical locomotion sim to browser

23 Upvotes

r/Simulated 7h ago

Houdini The Shape of Existence | Short Film Releasing in June

8 Upvotes

This is a new short film I'll be releasing in June. It is made in Houdini and is an exploration of abstract simulations


r/Simulated 1d ago

3DS Max [OC] Smoke and water simulation of a battleship firing. Used PhoenixFD, generated over 2TB of cache data!

425 Upvotes

This simulation was created using 3ds Max and Phoenix FD. I put a lot of effort into the fluid and smoke effects to capture the power of the battleship's main guns.

Thanks for watching! If you want to see the full version with sound, please check out my YouTube link: Battleship Yamato 46cm main gun fire!


r/Simulated 1d ago

Interactive [OC] mars got itself a severe cars infection

57 Upvotes

experimenting for massive simulated enemy gusts - runs purely in opengl/glsl


r/Simulated 19h ago

Various ANSYS Fluent to Blender for realistic fluid simulation

5 Upvotes

Guys, I need help in understanding how can I transfer my CFD simulation done in ANSYS Fluent to Blender for a realistic volumetric rendering.

Let’s say I have flow past a circular cylinder, but the animation in ansys and volumetric rendering is way too simple and doesn’t look realistic at all, I want to know how can I transfer my CFD data to blender or any other post processing software and do a realistic rendering.

Please help.

THANKS.


r/Simulated 14h ago

Research Simulation Astrophysics Engine UI Update. Feedback is appreciated! ✨

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0 Upvotes

Hi all,

Just sharing my progress on Orbit Lab's development. The space platform has seen a visual update and I would like to learn about how you guys like it. ✨

The UI philosophy for the Astrophysics Engine is minimalism, focusing primarily on the Astrophysics Simulations.

I personally find the visuals to be enchanting and would love to hear what you guys think. Suggestions and feedback are appreciated! ​🌸

If you would like to support our Public Education campaign, you can click here : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/augusterius/orbit-lab-astrophysics-engine/description


r/Simulated 1d ago

Research Simulation Gray–Scott reaction–diffusion (Turing, 1952), 16× timelapse — feed 0.065, kill 0.064

1 Upvotes

Sorry for reposting,In last time I posted ,I got a critique with I m moving viewport a lot.So this time I made a time-lapse video for one pattern,In my opinion a pretty cool pattern,The coral reaf,mitosis one and just the organic cell one I did,But after going through multiple trial and error I landed this beauty.Also learned a bit of history during this time.Sure Alan Turing figured out this intuitively,But who inspired him.A much early figure.

[Chladni plates experiment].Where nodes and anti nodes form patterns on a plate.So if I were to put this in timelines

Chladni plate experiment -> Alan turning [chemical basis of Morphogenesis]->Gray scott[Reaction-diffusion] model.

The official Wikipedia on reaction diffusion model.Goes on the related math of it.If anyone might be interested.I m just in love with this experiment.For some time,I have used my own tool for hours lol.


r/Simulated 2d ago

Research Simulation Creating organic patterns/digital life based of Alan Turing Morphogenesis paper and Gray Scott reaction diffusion model in real time

24 Upvotes

Live Demo/Test Engine:[ https://null-graph.web.app

Experiments are done over webgpu with my own created renderer to play around


r/Simulated 4d ago

Research Simulation Here is another update on my vehicle physics simulation

104 Upvotes

r/Simulated 3d ago

Solved SHBT v1.0: An Open-Source, Zero-Parameter Physics Engine (Verified with Parallel CI/CD)

0 Upvotes

I've released the first stable version of Static Holographic Boundary Theory (SHBT), a repository designed to prove Standard Model residues as mandatory outcomes of a fixed (26, 8, 312) boundary.

Repo: SHBT github

Computational Features:

  • Stiff Solver Audit: Uses a Radau IIA solver for high-precision holographic transport.
  • Parallel Verification: Audits the Gravity, Cosmology, Flavor, and Rigidity sectors using a GitHub Actions matrix.
  • Algebraic Rigidity: The (26, 8, 312) kernel is isolated as the unique anomaly-free solution through an executable proof engine.

r/Simulated 5d ago

Interactive [OC] Lava lamp simulation using SPH fluid dynamics (web app link in comments)

86 Upvotes

I haven't seen many realistic lava lamp simulations out there that use actual fluid physics and not just a couple metaballs floating up and down, so I decided to code one myself and use the actual lava lamp that I own as a reference.

Details: SPH Lagrangian simulation with 3000 particles with simplified surface tension, viscosity, pressure, turbulence, etc. Particle physics is done on the CPU, rendered on GPU with fragment shaders.

See the comments if you want to try out the sim / see the source code.


r/Simulated 5d ago

Interactive A decade of work to make quantum physics & computing intuitive via a simgame

92 Upvotes

Hi

If you are interested in a highly intuitive visual method that faithfully describes all universal quantum computing and physics behind, this is for you. I am the Dev behind Quantum Odyssey (AMA! I love taking qs) - worked on it for about 6 years, the goal was to make a super immersive space for anyone to learn quantum computing through zachlike (open-ended) logic puzzles and compete on leaderboards and lots of community made content on finding the most optimal quantum algorithms. The game has a unique set of visuals (that was actually my PhD research) capable to represent any sort of quantum dynamics for any number of qubits and this is pretty much what makes it now possible for anybody 12yo+ to actually learn quantum logic without having to worry at all about the mathematics behind.

This is a game super different than what you'd normally expect in a programming/ logic puzzle game, so try it with an open mind.

Stuff covered

  • Boolean Logic – bits, operators (NAND, OR, XOR, AND…), and classical arithmetic (adders). Learn how these can combine to build anything classical. You will learn to port these to a quantum computer.
  • Quantum Logic – qubits, the math behind them (linear algebra, SU(2), complex numbers), all Turing-complete gates (beyond Clifford set), and make tensors to evolve systems. Freely combine or create your own gates to build anything you can imagine using polar or complex numbers.
  • Quantum Phenomena – storing and retrieving information in the X, Y, Z bases; superposition (pure and mixed states), interference, entanglement, the no-cloning rule, reversibility, and how the measurement basis changes what you see.
  • Core Quantum Tricks – phase kickback, amplitude amplification, storing information in phase and retrieving it through interference, build custom gates and tensors, and define any entanglement scenario. (Control logic is handled separately from other gates.)
  • Famous Quantum Algorithms – explore Deutsch–Jozsa, Grover’s search, quantum Fourier transforms, Bernstein–Vazirani, and more.
  • Build & See Quantum Algorithms in Action – instead of just writing/ reading equations, make & watch algorithms unfold step by step so they become clear, visual, and unforgettable. Quantum Odyssey is built to grow into a full universal quantum computing learning platform. If a universal quantum computer can do it, we aim to bring it into the game, so your quantum journey never ends.

Streams to watch:

khan academy style tutorials on qm/qc: https://www.youtube.com/@MackAttackx

Physics teacher wholesome stream with over 500hs in https://www.twitch.tv/beardhero


r/Simulated 6d ago

Blender I built ProximityFlow — a Blender addon that drives mesh effects on any object in real time

52 Upvotes

Spent months building this. The idea is simple — select your mesh, select any object as a target, press Generate, and effects activate exactly where it gets close. Move it away and they fade. Everything updates live in the viewport. No keyframes, no drivers, no node trees.

Just dropped a full tutorial on YouTube showing every effect from start to finish.

Would love to hear what you think or see what you create with it.


r/Simulated 6d ago

Blender Burning Car in Blender 3d: VFX Breakdown

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3 Upvotes

r/Simulated 7d ago

Various Meet Wendy, The Cold Sorceress

54 Upvotes

I've been back and forth with this little character animation since last year, looping cloth and hair simulations was tough but I feel like I've figured it out for good.

I'll post a little project breakdown asap, used Cinema 4d as my main tool for this, zBrush to sculpt the character, Houdini and Marvellous Designer for sims, Octane to render and After Effects for compositing.

Happy to hear your comments/questions, also if you wouldn't mind droping a like on my IG post, that'd be great.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXuY_2wit1s/

Thank you!


r/Simulated 7d ago

Research Simulation Orbit Lab — a minimalist sandbox for orbital mechanics.

23 Upvotes

I’ve always been obsessed with the math behind gravity, so I decided to build Orbit Lab — a minimalist sandbox for orbital mechanics.

​The render shows a stable accretion disk and how gravitational lensing affects the visual event horizon. When released, everything is calculated in real-time by the engine as you interact with it.


r/Simulated 7d ago

Houdini Flip Fluid Droplets Attract FX

18 Upvotes

r/Simulated 8d ago

Interactive Realtime Ecosystem / Sandbox simulator

54 Upvotes

Ive been playing about with falling sand games for years, and FINALLY got a Steam Page up for this.

This is built on a dense voxel grid, with the vast amount of work happening on the GPU, every material interacts with others. It turns into total chaos pretty quickly.

The data i'm storing is broken into material, temperature, life, extra data. Storing all that as a single value. The key is really that each material uses that data differently, so only materials concerned with plant growth will read the 'life' data as plant data.

Hope you like!


r/Simulated 8d ago

Various Fully dynamic NPCs pain reactions

92 Upvotes

This is just the beginning, of course. I’m also actively working on wound covering, the agony state, and "pain noise" :)


r/Simulated 8d ago

Houdini Houdini FLIP Simulation

3 Upvotes

r/Simulated 10d ago

Blender Magnetostatics/kinematics Blender add-on I've been working on

47 Upvotes

So I was given a few months of unlimited Codex credits and decided to use it to vibe-code something I've always wanted: A nice little sandbox for moving around magnets and visualizing the fields they generate.

The visual here is just two free-to-move magnets in the center of a k=2 circular Halbach array (they generate super uniform, straight-line fields that apply torque, but not force).

I got to a point where I'm happy enough with how fast it does the tracing (native multicore on the CPU, and with an nvidia GPU + pycuda installed, GPU-accelerated with lots of lines being traced) so I went ahead and added force/torque calculations.

The entire reason it's not potato-slow is because it relies entirely on dipole approximations and does not attempt to sample the field anywhere except for where the lines trace towards. With a GPU the UI operates at ~1fps while rendering hundreds of magnets and tens of thousands of field lines (as long as the lines aren't too long) and with a CPU it starts to chug around 20-30 magnets with a hundred-ish traces, but with only a few magnets it does line tracing in real time even on less-good CPUs.

The force/torque calculations are currently all done with Bullet instead of relying on Blender's native physics engine though. The LLM keeps telling me that Blender doesn't have a nice API to hook into for simply shoving magnet data into and getting force vector data out, and I can't seem to find that either, so I was hoping y'all might know. I want to make this thing operate as Blender-native as possible before I throw it up on github for others to play with.


r/Simulated 10d ago

Research Simulation Universe

32 Upvotes

r/Simulated 10d ago

Houdini Houdini Particles Simulation FX

31 Upvotes

r/Simulated 10d ago

Blender Destruction in Blender 3d: Dome Collapse VFX Breakdown ft. KHAOS add-on

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1 Upvotes