liquid in glass

[StephenJones]

i made a glass beaker, and i want to fill it with a liquid. however i dont know how because i cant et a shape to forme exactally against the walls of the beaker. is there a way i can get something in it?

[synkronizer]

What software do you use?

[StephenJones]

doh! im a moron. how could i forget to mention that. ^_^

i use 3d studio max 4

[kuman]

this can get complicated. you might just try a fluid simulation with a program like real flow. however if you don't have it what i would do is us probably use a set of parametric modifiers to do two things at once. i'd animate a colum rising up and then the colum scaling at the top to fit the shape of the glass. it'll probably be a fairly complex stack of animations. i'd also probably select the top layer of verts and add some sort of modifier there to try to eumlate the distortion of the top of the class. it won't be as nice as a real fluid sim, but you might be able to make due with it.

good luck
-k

[StephenJones]

im not doing an animation though, im just rendering a scene, and i need to make this flask filled with a liquid, but the problem is, i dont know how to get this liquid to conform to the shape of the flask. im sorry, i know im not being too descriptive, but i dsont know how else describer my problem. ill get some pictures for you, and maybe that will help.

EDIT: I figured it out. i just used a boolean to do it. however i have one more question, this should be a little esier to figure out. since this flask is glass, i need to have lots of polys to make it look realistic, however when i meshsmooth, it puts alot of strain on my system. is there a way i can make it so that in the viewports, it shows a low poly flask, but when i render it shows the mesh smoothed one?

[synkronizer]

in the meshsmooth modifier, find the 'subdivision amount'
here you can adjust the iterations.
just check the box in front of 'render iterations' set it to the amount you want, and set the top 'iterations" spinner to 0.

That should do the trick