Makoto Chiba has posted an interesting thread on CG Society testing the waters (pun intended) for a new PIC/FLIP/APIC based Fluid simulation tool named Aquarius. The software was original developed as an in-house solution by MagicPictures Inc., but according to the thread, it could soon be released for sale to the wider community. Screen shots show the application running in 3DS Max, but Makoto has mentioned that it is Python-based so any DCC can be used by creating a connector plugin. Simulations are compatible with a number of renderers as Aquarius is able to export data in prt, Alembic and VDB formats. You can read more about the tool on the R&D section of MagicPictures’ website, and find more up date information and see videos on the CGSociety forum.
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This is CPU, GPU or Hybrid?
This is currently CPU based simulator.
Because 100’s millions of particles transfer to GPU takes a lot of time.
But it is full multi threaded and enough faster than the other simulator, such as RF or Bifrost.
BTW, information at my web site is really old. It is about 7 or 8 years ago. That is actually for very old version of Aquarius.
I will renew it soon.
thanks
This looks great however I wish someone have deloped a Krakatoa competitive software. There are so many fluid simulators out there and nothing to play with particles on Krakatoas scale. I am curious about a price.
This looks great. I am curious on price point. Can wait to try it.
Just released 3ds Max 2018.3 update brings some nice surprise on the fluid sim front …
Well, that was really unexpected.
Thank you guys.
I’m still thinking about price carefully.
And I was no surprised about max2018.3.
I actually don’t test it yet. But it should have same core with Maya/Bifrost, means even slower than AQ. In fact, on the demo video sim looks very slow…
But I like their guide simulation. I will have similar function in AQ.
Will be interested to hear about speed compared to PhoenixFD as well.
Hi Makoto
Really nice work! I’m planning to write my own solver for non compressible fluids and your results are very motivational.
You seem to get a lot of details but numerical diffusion is definitely doing it’s part in smoothing them out over time. What’s the underlying technique you’re using? Would love to hear a bit more about it.
What I like about Aquarius is the UI. Node base. I still want to try it out. If the price is right I will most definitely get it.
Hey Makoto.
Is this something completely tied to 3dsmax or you can make it compatible with other packages (I´m talking about Blender) or as an standalone like Real Flow?
Cheers and congrats on your work, awesome!
Makoto, When are you planning to release Aquarius.
Juang3d,
Aquarius core is CLI application(such as command line sim mode of Real flow or Naiad).
This is means if we make easy plugin(store some data about simulation, kinds like object list or something) for each DCC app, we can use Aquarius simulation from it.
Zorm,
Currently, we are checking all of part, especially UI. Because Aquarius was our in-house app while long time.
So, when we finish it, I will start beta test. It should be near future.
And here is new test mov compare with max/Bifrost
https://youtu.be/Ip71BQoFauo
This is VERY impressive!
My experience with Fluid simulators is that although some are faster than RF, eventually nothing except Houdini can offer such depth of DIRECTABILITY of these fluids. What if you need a specific cinematic splash (keywords Crow, surface tension) or how about Morph from a river to moving character? What about Waves on a beach with whitewater, wetmaps? In Houdini you can have multiple solvers, including custom logics affect movement of fluid particles. This is amazing control! I am wondering if anything such as functionality offered by RF daemons, forces and/or nodes is planned/already possible? As precondition, I assume solid GUI is needed.
Makoto,
Do you know if Aquarius is likely to be compatible with Max 2014?
We use python for UI.
So, max2014 with extension may works.
But currently, I’m just building for 2015 and later.
Thanks for the quick reply. Ok,that’s understandable.. I’ll keep an eye out and try the trial version.
Hello
Any news on the status of the plugin. I’m interested. Looking forward to seeing it. Thx.