Phoenix Fluid Dynamics is officially released

Phoenix Fluid Dynamics is the latest product released by Chaos Software. The software perfectly combines a grid based simulator with outstanding rendering capabilities.

Feature list below the picture and video.




Phoenix FD rendered with V-Ray Toon

Phoenix FD Key Features

Fast physically based simulation core
A unique approach was taken when developing the Phoenix FD simulation core. Aggressive internal optimizations allow for reduced calculation times while keeping the whole simulation physically accurate. This allows some additional processes like pressure decay, thermal radiation cooling and mass-temperature relation to be simulated.

Background simulation
The simulation process of Phoenix FD runs independently and does not lock the UI of the 3ds Max. This allows the user to make changes in the simulation and even to perform rendering. Furthermore changes to the simulator parameters immediately affect the simulation.

Support of all standard space warp modifiers
Phoenix FD supports all the 3ds Max standard space warp modifiers which allows to easily affect the movement of the fluid.

Wind from movement
Allows the user to simulate moving fluid oblecs (like torches, flying fireballs, etc) without the use of fake additional winds. Both linear and angular winds are simulated.

Slow fluids simulation
The simulation of slow moving fluids is a problem in many grid based simulators, because of the undesired diffusion in the Semi-Lagrangian advection process. Phoenix FD has been optimized to simulate arbitrary slow fluids without any undesired diffusion.

Fluid source form pre-simulated surface
Using the effects channel of a Phoenix FD object the user can define an implicit surface and use it as a fluid source for another Phoenix FD object. This allows the creation of effects like burning liquids, water releasing vapour, etc.

Particle based sources
Using geometry sources is not always suitable, especially when the fluid should appear "out of nothing". For such situations a particle system can be used as source and all the parameters can be animated in particle age time.

GPU accelerated preview
Setting up the rendering of flames and other emissive effects can be greatly accelerated with the help of the GPU preview function. It allows the user to fine tune the look of the final render since the preview matches it completely.

ParticleFlow operators
With the Phoenix FD ParticleFlow operators the user can move the particles along the fluid or change their events, which allows for a large variety of particle based effects.

MaxScript support
Phoenix FD exports a number of MaxScript functions which give direct access to the simulator's content and the simulation result. Using the script mechanism the user can obtain results that are impossible or very hard to realize with the conventional methods. For example one can set some complicated initial conditions of the simulation, build their own procedural sources and volumetric textures, etc.

Texture driven simulation
Each channel of the Phoenix FD simulator can be initialized or "attracted" by a volumetric texture map. The "attraction" option allows the user to give a tendency of the simulation with different level of "pressure".

Displacement
One of the most powerfull features of Phoenix FD is fluid displacement, which provides a completely new way for adding fine details to the visualised fluid. As in the usual geometry displacement, the displaced fluid is moved along the normal with a certain value given by a texture. The fine details of the texture can be much smaller than the grid's cell and this leads to a totally new appearance of the rendered result.The Phoenix FD's displacement technique does not use a copy of the fluid with bigger resolution, and the user need not worry about the consumed memory. The displacement algorithm is fully multi threaded.

Procedural texture export
The Phoenix FD plugin comes with an additional 3D texture which allows the simulation result to be rendered with any general purpose volumetric shader like VrayEnvironmentFog. In addition to external shading, the texture export allows the creation of many special effects, for example lava-looking surface achieved with displaced transparency channel and non displaced emissive channel etc.

Rendering of textures
In addition to the usual simulation channels (temperature, smoke etc) the Phoenix FD volumetric shader can use any other procedural textures as emissive, diffuse, effects and transparency sources. This allows Phoenix FD to be used as a very fast general purpose volumetric shader or to create some sophisticated render setups.

Particle texture tool
Using this tool the user can generate a displacement texture based on particles dragged by the fluid, achieving fine details moved along the fluid. Technically the texture is not specifically related to other Phoenix FD objects and can be used independently.

Proper blending (requires V-Ray)
A well known issue of atmospheric objects is the inability to blend properly two or more overlapped atmospheres. Rendering in geometry mode allows the user to blend many Phoenix FD objects in a correct way.

Heat haze (requires V-Ray)

In this mode the rays traced inside the simulator's volume are redirected based on the content's gradient. All scalar channels can be used as a heat haze source.

Solid mode (requires V-Ray)

In this mode the content is rendered as a procedural geometry object with surface determined by the threshold value of the selected channel. Using this mode the user can in few minutes simulate and render realistically looking liquids.

Playback time scale
Using a special blending algorithm, Phoenix FD is able to construct intermediate frames and to play the simulation result with variable speed.

Various simulation modes
The user can choose different core modes depending on the simulation task. For example, the mass sensitive conservation algorithm is more suitable for simulating denser, more liquid-like fluids, while the uniform mass conservation algorithm favors the simulation of flames.

2D simulation mode
Phoenix FD is able to work in 2D mode that is suitable for many purposes.

Various cache compression
The simulation result of Phoenix FD is written in compressed files to avoid excessive disk space usage. The user can select quality/size ratio of the compression method based on his/her needs.

Proper GI support with V-Ray
Global illumination plays an important role in the visualization of smoke effects. Phoenix FD supports all of V-Ray's GI features and adds some accelerating options to avoid the local scattering.

Dragging of UVW/mapping channels coordinates
The user is able to drag UVW coordinates with the fluid and use them to map other textures. The UVW channel can be also exported as a map.

In addition to the usual uniform fluid behavior, Phoenix FD is capable of simulating a whole array of additional processes like pressure decay, thermal radiation cooling and mass-temperature dependence.

Phoenix FD is in a promotional period as of 9th of August until 10th of September 2010 with a promotion price of €350/$445/£295. The official product price is €695/$895/£575.
*Dongle, shipping and VAT are not included.

Overview by Torgeir Holm


A Phoenix Fluid Dynamics product overview is made by Torgeir Holm, Creative Director 3D and VFX + Partner/Owner at Netron 2.0 AS and Editor at VRay.info. He explains some of the features in the product package scheduled for official release on August 9, 2010 at vray.info

Fluids are substances that continually deform, such as liquids, gases, plasma etc. Phoenix FD lets you simulate these fluids in 3ds Max. The simulation is stored in a finely subdivided 3D box, or grid, where each cell contains the fluid's properties at that location. These properties include temperature, mass and velocity. During the simulation Phoenix will transfer cell contents from cell to cell according to velocity over time, and also change the properties in the cells according to physical rules. The resulting simulation is then used for rendering.

PHOENIX FD

Read here the whole review with texts and video prepared by Torgeir Holm.
Supported Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SP2 or higher) 32-bit or 64-bit
Microsoft Windows Vista Business (SP1 or higher) 32-bit or 64-bit
Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit
Supported 3ds Max platforms

Autodesk 3ds Max 9
Autodesk 3ds Max 2008
Autodesk 3ds Max 2009
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009
Autodesk 3ds Max 2010
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010
Autodesk 3ds Max 2011
Hardware Requirements

Minimum 2GHz CPU
Minimum 1GB RAM

Copyright ©2010, Chaos Software

source : http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/phoenix.html

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