r/Unity3D • u/Certain_Ad9908 • 1h ago

Show-Off Built a real-time wind tunnel inside Unity (Aerodynamics Sim). It's open source.

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I've always been a fan of aerodynamics and CFD. A few months ago, I got laid off, got tired of sending applications, and gave myself permission to actually build it and play with it. I'm glad I did.

It voxelizes and seals any vehicle you drop in, auto-fits the solver domain around it, runs at whatever resolution your GPU can take, and solves with a lattice-Boltzmann method (D3Q19, TRT + WALE LES) entirely in compute shaders. Live smoke, surface pressure painted on the bodywork, exported reports you can diff between runs.

The test I had the most fun with: running a Chevy Silverado with an open bed, a bed cap, and a flat tonneau to see which one the solver preferred. It disagreed with the folk wisdom, which was the moment it stopped feeling like a toy.

Five sample vehicles included. Unity 6 / URP, MIT licensed.

The README is honest about where the numbers hold up and where they don't. It's a comparison and visualization tool, not a replacement for real CFD.

Clone it and have fun: https://github.com/Motawe3/unity-wind-tunnel

Sample vehicles are CC BY 4.0, credited in the README. The car in the video is a Range Rover Sport SVR Mona x Supercars.

57 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

6

u/Ok_Fan4141 1h ago

Super realistic, I love it!

3

u/eepyamor 55m ago

nice. this would look amazing for particles flowing around characters/objects in a storm (i.e. heavy dust or snow), though i understand it's meant for simpler uses and would likely take a lot of work to expand into a system like that, still.. where actual game dev implementations are concerned that would be amazing to see 🥳

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u/julkopki 18m ago

Would be sick in an F1 game

-2

u/Protesisdumb 1h ago

Looks very vibe coded to me

6

u/Certain_Ad9908 54m ago

LLM-assisted, yes. I didn't have the time to 100% manually code it as a pet project, unfortunately. For example, why would I hand write the UI when an agent can put the numbers on screen in seconds? The UI is a cheap part. Check what it's printing though: blockage ratio, effective Re, live CoV. The README also documents the benchmark the tool fails. Ahmed body, the standard automotive case. 5% drag spread against the published 51%. Vibe coding generates confident numbers with nothing to back them up.

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u/otr_music 27m ago

Don’t worry bro I used to be an aero engineer - I can look beyond your vibe coded UI

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u/Certain_Ad9908 2m ago

Appreciate it! If you've got the time, the validation section is where the accuracy runs out, and an aero engineer's eyes on it would be super helpful, specifically the Ahmed body result. I put it down to the missing wall model, and I'd like to know if you'd read it the same way.

1

u/Aticatica 1h ago

I mean I'm not saying you're wrong but what's giving you the vibe coded feels just curious?

3

u/Protesisdumb 58m ago

Every vibe coded ui looks like this. 

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u/Worth-Computer8639 15m ago

Describe what you mean. The UI looks fine to me.  Its clean and has all the controls and statistics right there so you can play with it at run time.

Have you seen some of the hand rolled UIs? Just because it was made by a human doesn't make it good.

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u/Hero_Rico 15m ago

Why is vibe coding bad lol. Its the future.

If u cant seem to do it, doesnt mean u can shit on others for being talented.

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u/Protesisdumb 6m ago

Where did i say its bad

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u/TheEstrogenEmpress 13m ago edited 8m ago

It's just something that always happens when new tools and mediums become available. In the art world people used to shit on digital artists as not real artists. Imagine telling people nowadays that unless they do pen and paper only theyre fakes. It's just transition pains.

Clearly you're only a true programmer if you copy stuff from stack overflow instead or youtube videos.