Blender For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Lost Simulation Data

As mentioned in Chapter 13, Blender saves some simulation data to your hard drive. Unfortunately, if that simulation data isn't where Blender expects it to be, your simulation doesn't show up in your .blend file. Generally, lost simulation data happens for one of three reasons:

• You work on more than one computer. If you work in Blender on more than one machine and only copy the .blend file between the two, the simulation data isn't where it needs to be on the second computer. You need to copy that simulation data to the same place relative to your .blend file on the second computer for it to show up properly.
• You accidentally changed or deleted the path to the simulation data. This reason isn't common, but it does happen. Fortunately, the fix is simple for fluid simulations. Select the domain object for your fluid simulation and go to Physics Properties. In the Fluid panel, the path to your simulation data is the last field. Enter the proper path here or left-click the folder icon to the right of the field and find the proper directory with the File Browser.
• You're using the /tmp directory for your simulations. Initially, using /tmp doesn't seem like that big of a deal. However, on some operating systems, the /tmp directory is periodically purged, deleting everything in it. If that directory gets purged, your simulation won't show up and your only option is to rebake it.

  Using /tmp all the time also has another nasty side effect: Different .blend files overwrite ...