New features in Sitni Sati’s multiphysics plugin for 3ds Max include updates to NodeWorks, its node-based particle and ocean toolset, and improvements designed to reach simulation results faster and being able to change those results afterwards without simulating them again:
- New solver at the core: a Multigrid PCG (MGPCG) pressure solver on both CPU and GPU. Pressure projection is the most expensive stage of a gas simulation, and multigrid changes how its cost grows: the result is up to twice the GPU simulation speed of PCG and roughly ten times faster than CPU simulation in FumeFX 5, with the largest gains on the largest grids.
- A cache you can keep editing: the larger workflow change is the new Post Load pipeline, which modifies a cached simulation as it is read from disk and leaves the cache itself untouched. Fast Up-Res adds detail on load without re-simulating; the Retimer changes playback speed on load without re-caching, and now sits in the Playback rollout so speed can be adjusted interactively rather than baked and reviewed. A new Memory Cache keeps loaded frames in RAM so up-res, retiming and sharpening stay interactive during scrubbing.
- Rendering and pipeline: a new multiple scattering algorithm joins Scanline rendering and is now properly supported in the GPU viewport, which is itself 10–20% faster. VDB export meets Unreal Engine 5’s requirements, GPU simulation adds oxygen-based burning, sharpening and Spline Follow, and a Preferences option highlights changed parameters.
- Rebuilt ocean Wake: Ocean Dynamics replaces its wake and ripple solver with a GPU-accelerated one that resolves Kelvin wakes — the V-shaped pattern a moving hull leaves behind — alongside new engine force and direction controls.
- Flow and foam: a new 2D Flow Solver drives surface motion from FumeFX and native 3ds Max forces, and Ocean Float can advect any particle group through it. The new Dyna Whitewater node creates foam and bubbles from wakes and flow, drivable by any source and by NodeWorks forces, while Submerged Decay lets bubbles fade out of the surface’s forces with depth and re-couple as they rise.
- Ocean detail without the ocean object: New Ocean Spectrum and Ocean Spectra Mix textures displace geometry through VRayDisplacementMod or drive a bump map, and both spectra and Ocean Dynamics simulation data now export to file and read back — so a look moves between scenes and shots. Ocean GPU performance is up across the board: whitewater over 2× faster, spectra tiling and masking over 3×, and dynamics displacement over 10×.
- NodeWorks – across the graph: adds the xShape object for extracting particle shapes into 3ds Max geometry, a Memory Cache over 2× faster, 3ds Max 2023+ viewport instancing for much faster instanced display, and texmap drag-and-drop from the Material Editor — plus dozens of workflow refinements, including several that stop display-only changes from restarting a simulation.
28 years after releasing AfterBurn the company founded by Kresimir Tkalcec keeps expanding Max’s VFX capabilities (as well as that of other software). Visit Afterworks.com for the complete list of changes.
