Mixbox Installation and Uninstallation

• What is the FLIP Fluids Mixbox Plugin?
• Installation Instructions
  • Quick Installation Instructions
  • Detailed Installation Instructions
  • Uninstallation Instructions
• How do I use the Mixbox color blending feature?

What is the FLIP Fluids Mixbox Plugin?

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.

The Mixbox pigment mixing technology is developed by Secret Weapons. Learn more about Mixbox here: https://scrtwpns.com/mixbox/

Without the the Mixbox color blending feature, liquid colors will be mixed by using additive RGB blending, which can produce incorrect results. For example, mixing blue and yellow using RGB blending results in a shade of grey when in reality the mix of these colors should produce a shade of green:

mixbox_blue_yellow_example.mp4

Installation Instructions

Installing the FLIP Fluids plugin is quick and easy! You will need the Mixbox plugin file in order to proceed with the installation. This file can be found in the product downloads and is labelled as Mixbox.plugin.

The Mixbox color blending features require FLIP Fluids version 1.5.0 or later and Blender 2.93 or later. These features are only available in the full version of the FLIP Fluids addon (See supported marketplaces).

Related Documentation:

• How do I install the FLIP Fluids addon?
• How do I download the FLIP Fluids addon product files?
• Video Guide: FLIP Fluids YouTube: Installing and Using the Mixbox Plugin
• Why is this feature hidden behind the Developer Tools option?

Quick Installation Instructions

The following steps are brief instructions for how to install the FLIP Fluids Mixbox plugin. For detailed instructions with screenshots, see the Detailed Installation Instructions below.

1. Download the Mixbox.plugin file from the FLIP Fluids addon product downloads.
2. Open the FLIP Fluids addon preferences menu.
3. Activate the Enable Developer Tools option to enable the Mixbox plugin features.
4. Click the Install Mixbox Plugin operator and select the Mixbox.plugin file.

The FLIP Fluids Mixbox plugin features have now been installed and can be used immediately. The downloaded Mixbox plugin file is no longer needed and you may delete or archive this file.

Detailed Installation Instructions

1. Download the Mixbox.plugin file from the FLIP Fluids addon product downloads.
   • How do I download the FLIP Fluids addon product files?
2. Open the FLIP Fluids addon preferences menu.
   • Open the addon preferences by selecting Help > FLIP Fluids > FLIP Fluids Preferences.

3. In the preferences menu, select the Mixbox Installation tab and activate the Enable Developer Tools option to enable the Mixbox plugin features.

4. Click the Install Mixbox Plugin operator.

5. Select the downloaded Mixbox.plugin file and click Install Mixbox

6. The FLIP Fluids Mixbox plugin features have now been installed and a Status: Installed message will be displayed.

7. (Optional) The Mixbox plugin can be tested by expanding the Test Mixbox submenu. This section lets you test and compare gradients between the Mixbox color blending and basic RGB color blending.

The FLIP Fluids Mixbox plugin features have now been installed and can be used immediately. The downloaded Mixbox plugin file is no longer needed and you may delete or archive this file.

Uninstallation Instructions

The Mixbox plugin and features can be uninstalled in the FLIP Fluids addon preferences menu.

1. Open the FLIP Fluids addon preferences menu.
   • Open the addon preferences by selecting Help > FLIP Fluids > FLIP Fluids Preferences.
2. In the Mixbox Installation tab, click the Uninstall Mixbox Plugin operator.

The FLIP Fluids Mixbox plugin has now been uninstalled and the Mixbox features have now been deactivated.

How do I use the Mixbox color blending feature?

This section will provide a brief overview of how to enable the FLIP Fluids Mixbox color blending feature and how to create a basic material shader for rendering. The Mixbox color blending feature is a part of the attributes feature set. Refer to the Domain Attribute and Data Settings documentation for more information.

Video Guides:

• FLIP Fluids YouTube: Installing and Using the Mixbox Plugin
• Olav3D Tutorials: [3.2] Blender Tutorial: Mixing Paint Colors With FLIP Fluids

1. Enable Mixbox color mixing in the Domain settings.
   • Select the Domain object.
   • Select the physics properties tab.
   • Enable Color Attributes in the FLIP Fluid Surface > Color and Mixing Attributes options. This option will set the simulator to generate color attributes during simulation. The color attribute can be accessed within a shader, in geometry nodes, or other areas of Blender using the name flip_color
   • Enable Color Mixing. This option will set the simulator to simulate the blending of colors.
   • Set the Mixing Mode to Mixbox. This will set the simulator to blend colors using the Mixbox plugin features.
   • Note: These options must be set before baking the simulation for these settings to take effect.

2. After enabling the color attributes, each Fluid or Inflow object can be set to emit a different color.
   • Select a Fluid or Inflow type object.
   • Select the physics properties tab.
   • Set the Color Attribute color in the Geometry Attributes options. This is the color of fluid that the object will emit. Keyframing this color value is supported within the simulator.
   • Note: This option must be set before baking the simulation for the setting to take effect.

3. Begin baking the simulation.
   • The simulator will now simulate the blending of colors using the Mixbox plugin and will generate color attributes which can be used within a material shader.

4. Set up a material shader for rendering.
   • Add a material shader to the fluid_surface object.
   • In the shader node network, add an Attribute Node.
   • Set the Attribute Node name value to flip_color.
   • Connect the color output of the Attribute Node to the base color input of a Principled BSDF shader.
   • The material can now be viewed in the viewport by setting the Viewport Shading Mode to Rendered or Material Preview.
   • Note: Attributes are only supported on the final version of the fluid_surface object. Attributes are not supported on the preview version of the mesh.

5. Render the simulation.
   • Due to an open bug in Blender (reported here: T88811), rendering attributes within the Blender UI can result in frequent crashes or incorrect rendered frames.
   • To work around this issue, rendering from the command line is necessary for complete render stability.
   • The FLIP Fluids sidebar menu contains Command Line Tools to help you automatically launch a command line animation or frame render.