Chaos Group has announced the latest version of Phoenix FD, its fluid dynamics plugin for 3DS Max and Maya. New features in version 3.12 include:
- Ocen mesh now offers full support for all the parameters of the V-Ray Physical Camera and 3DS Max Physical Camera including Spherical, Cylindrical, Box, Fisheye, Warped spherical, Ortho, 360 Virtual Reality Spherical Panorama and Cube 6×1 cameras.
- In 3DS Max you are now able to manually instance Simulators across the scene for preview and rendering in Volumetric render modes, as well as the Isosurface and Ocean Mesh modes. Simulators can be instanced for simulation too, making it possible for them to share one cache sequence and the same simulation settings, but each Simulator instance will interact with the obstacles, emitters and forces inside its own grid. Distributing simulators with VRayInstancer is not currently supported, but should be available soon.
- Thanks to the addition of instancing support, it is now also possible to XRef Simulators and Particle Shaders.
- In the Maya version, Simulators can be instanced using both MASH and Maya’s native Particle Instancer and the Viewport Preview can display the instanced Simulators. These instances would need to be rendered in Volumetric Geometry mode.
- Texture mapping the colour and opacity of fire and smoke now works when rendering with V-Ray Next GPU. though this currently requires a V-Ray Next nightly build.
Phoenix FD for Max or Maya costs £40 per month or £240 a year to rent, or perpetual licenses are available starting from £520 or £980 including 5 simulations licenses. Find out more on Chaos Group’s website.
