I used one of those fancy new tools to generate some starter code.

I think creating a liquid object and then using insidedness tests would be the
way to go.  Maybe define a central axis to correct everything towards - that
would even work with a tilted container.

#macro Bubble(id, startX, startZ, startY, radius, fluidMinX, fluidMaxX,
fluidMinZ, fluidMaxZ, fluidSurfaceY)
  // Rise speed based on radius
  #local riseSpeed = radius * 2;

  // Vertical position based on clock
  #local currentY = startY + (clock * riseSpeed);
  #if (currentY > fluidSurfaceY)
    #local currentY = fluidSurfaceY;
  #end

  // Expansion as bubble rises
  #local scaleFactor = 1 + (currentY - startY) / (fluidSurfaceY - startY) * 0.2;
  #local currentRadius = radius * scaleFactor;

  // Turbulence: horizontal wobble using sine waves
  #local wobbleX = sin(clock * 10 + id) * 0.2;
  #local wobbleZ = cos(clock * 10 + id) * 0.2;

  // Apply turbulence to position
  #local posX = startX + wobbleX;
  #local posZ = startZ + wobbleZ;

  // Clamp to container bounds
  #if (posX < fluidMinX + currentRadius)
    #local posX = fluidMinX + currentRadius;
  #end
  #if (posX > fluidMaxX - currentRadius)
    #local posX = fluidMaxX - currentRadius;
  #end
  #if (posZ < fluidMinZ + currentRadius)
    #local posZ = fluidMinZ + currentRadius;
  #end
  #if (posZ > fluidMaxZ - currentRadius)
    #local posZ = fluidMaxZ - currentRadius;
  #end

  // Create the bubble
  sphere {
    <posX, currentY, posZ>, currentRadius
    texture {
      pigment { color rgbt <1, 1, 1, 0.9> }
      finish { specular 0.6 reflection 0.1 }
    }
    interior { ior 1.0 }
  }
#end



#declare fluidMinX = -2;
#declare fluidMaxX = 2;
#declare fluidMinZ = -2;
#declare fluidMaxZ = 2;
#declare fluidSurfaceY = 10;
#declare bubbleCount = 10;

#declare i = 0;
#while (i < bubbleCount)
  #declare startX = RRand(fluidMinX + 0.3, fluidMaxX - 0.3, i);
  #declare startZ = RRand(fluidMinZ + 0.3, fluidMaxZ - 0.3, i + 100);
  #declare startY = RRand(0.5, 2.0, i + 200);
  #declare radius = RRand(0.1, 0.3, i + 300);

  Bubble(i, startX, startZ, startY, radius, fluidMinX, fluidMaxX, fluidMinZ,
fluidMaxZ, fluidSurfaceY)

  #declare i = i + 1;
#end


If interested, I have access to a better verion, and GPT-5 at work, which seems
to be able to spit out a ton of higher-level code.

There's still a lot of mistakes regarding lowercase reserved identifiers,
macro-vs-function, passing undeclared identifiers into "functions", etc.,
however it gives you a lot of preliminary ideas to work with, and can help
implement tricky equations in code a lot faster.

-BW

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