Feature articles

Introduction

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HitFilm is an all-in-one editing, 3D and VFX software that prides itself on being a toolset that can be used by independent filmmakers, artists and newcomers to VFX and editing. Developed by UK-based company FXhome, the software allows users to import media, edit it, composite and add effects to it, then export the results to a variety of formats.

The market in which HitFilm resides has some fierce competition. When you think of compositing tools, one immediately thinks of products like After Effects, Nuke or Fusion. These are big players in the VFX and compositing arena, so where does Hitfilm fit in? The software also offers editing capabilities, so how does it compare to related products like Final Cut, Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas?

In this review I will take a look at HitFilm 3 and see what it has to offer, and we will find out where it stands when compared to some of these similar tools.

Installation & Setup

Hitfilm 3 offers a unique experience of being able to do both editing and VFX compositing within one software. Other software tools out there tend to focus one or the other, so I was interested in seeing how the HitFilm workflow handled these two areas of production within one interface.

HitFilm can be purchased at a cost of $299 USD from the official website and once the software was downloaded, I was able to quickly get it up and running. The first obstacle any user faces when using or learning a new software is usually becoming friends with the UI, and learning how everything works. HitFilm has done a really great job of putting new users at ease. Upon launching the interface, users are greeted with a simple layout, a homepage that offers direct links to the HitFilm user guide, video tutorials and user forums. So anyone who is new to HitFilm can easily search out what they are looking for. This is a great way to learn what HitFilm is capable of, but it also allows you to focus on a particular topic right from the get-go. Getting up to speed takes no time at all, and some of the tutorial topics covered are particles, motion graphics and editing essentials.

Setting up your project workspace is simple and straightforward. In the “Project” tab users can specify project settings that include the typical options offered by most video editing and compositing programs like resolutions, 8 & 16bit depth, and frame rate.

Editing & Compositing

The editing component of HitFilm will feel very familiar to anyone who has done any editing before. I will admit, the interface feels like a clunkier, less congested version of Adobe Premiere. The panels, and general layout are what one would expect from a typical video editing toolset, and all of the common editing tools are there. One area that seemed to be lacking was audio. With a limited audio toolset, users can hope this is an area that HitFilm can improve upon in future releases.

The compositing side of the software has a lot to offer. Again, the interface is very similar to After Effects so any AE user will feel right at home, be it for working with compositing or finishing video projects.

One great feature of editing in HitFilm that greatly simplifies workflow when moving from editing to compositing is that you can simply select your shot, hit 'Make Composite Shot', and it will create a composite using the clip selected. Next step is to choose View-Workspace-Compositing from the main menu and you are now using the compositing interface. This is a nice change from using software like Premiere and After Effects where you have to switch out of one, and into another.

Now that we have a composite to work with, we have a wide range of effects, filters, and presets that we can use to alter our footage. The standard tools one would expect in a compositing application are there: tools for keying, masking, and colour correction are all present. I was really impressed at how in-depth HitFilm's composting toolset is.

The sheer amount of tools, and especially particle setups was really nice to see, and it offers a wide range of effects to use and customize for projects' needs. Some of the great particle setups include blood splatter, smoke, sparks, and rain and could be considered similar to what Trapcode Particular offers in After Effects, or Nuke's particle tools. The presets are drag and drop, and can be easily customized, something which can speed up your workflow and allows you to focus on adjusting the settings to get the look you are after. Users can also right click on a customized effect and save it as a preset for future use. HitFilm supports the OpenFX standard, so users can use plugins from other vendors and developers as well.

3D & Importing Geometry

Compositing in 3D space is a must have feature these days, and it's also available in this software. Being able to import 3D geometry into your compositing environment to do camera projection work is a standard in the industry these days and it is nice to see that HitFilm is keeping up with its higher priced competitors.

One thing I would like to see is support for Alembic files, or at least .fbx files. In the version I was using, I was only able to import .3ds, .lwo, or .obj files. The import window for 3D geometry offers control to pan around and view your model before bringing it into your composite, and it also lets you adjust and manipulate the materials. Once imported, you can create a camera, and then add your geometry to gain access to the full 3D environment. Accessing and manipulating the transform data is simple and allows users to move the 3D geometry as needed.

If you are importing a camera from Boujou, SynthEyes, or PFTrack, you will be happy to know that HitFilm supports these formats. And if that wasn't enough, Mocha for HitFilm is also a part of the HitFilm toolset so planar tracking is possible as well.

Once your editing and composites are complete, you can move onto the Export component of HitFilm. This is where you can output your projects to various formats, including a direct connection to YouTube. Along with YouTube, the HitFilm provides export settings for Quicktimes, H.264, EXR sequences, and various image sequence formats. One thing that stood out to me was that both the Quicktime and Image Sequence outputs seemed to be lacking some of the more popular formats and codecs. For example, if I wanted to export my sequence as a tiff or targa sequence there was no option for this format. Also the Quicktime tab seemed to be missing a lot of the codecs that you would normally see in other products like After Effects or Nuke.

Conclusion

HitFilm 3 does not attempt to be a substitute or replacement of Final Cut, After Effects, or Nuke. When using it, I felt as if HitFilm is the underdog, and I was rooting for it and wanted it to succeed. It is an entry level product, that offers users a rich and well thought out toolset, at a really great price. For the low price $299 USD, users can get a software that is capable of delivering high quality effects, without having to break the bank.

Overall I was really impressed with what HitFilm has to offer. The simple interface, coupled with a really great support community, make HitFilm a really solid product that new users can learn and get up to speed quickly. There are a few small details that HitFilm could improve upon to make it an even better product, like additional export options and better support for 3D geometry and audio. With previous releases, HitFilm has listened to its users and community and added in new features, so if the demand for these improvements is there, they will most likely be added in the next release.

HitFilm is a great alternative to some of the other more expensive, well known tools out there, and the price makes it appealing to anyone who requires a full editing and compositing toolset for filmmaking.

Introduction

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Houdini is a procedural 3D application developed by Toronto-based Side Effects Software. Currently in its 14th iteration, the first version was released back in 1996 (though its roots can be traced back to Prisms, a software developed in the 1980s).

I have been using Houdini since version 8 and to be honest I have always been extremely impressed with what the software is capable of. Coming from a 3DS Max background, with almost 14 years of experience with the software, working on something like Houdini was a revelation of sorts. The procedural node-based approach allowed for a kind of flexibility that I had never experienced before. Even though at times this approach can be extremely technical and a little dense the end results always justified the efforts.

Now, around version 8, the Houdini interface was not the most user-friendly but since then Side Effects Software has made a major effort towards making the software more approachable. This started with the release of Houdini 9, which introduced, among other things, a brand new interface, material system and the physically-based renderer. A major internal re-write was carried out in Version 12 making the entire software a lot more memory efficient and multi-threaded. Along with that there has also been a continuous effort in improving the interface and viewport performance.

Version 14 once again makes major improvements on that front. The viewport, selection process and general user experience has received a huge upgrade with this version. Along with that, improvements have been made to the animation editor along with the introduction of the Animation layers panel. There is a brand new crowd simulation system and Position-Based Dynamics which allow for simulating sand, snow and various soft body effects. UV mapping has been improved and also the hair tools have been updated.

Let’s start with the biggest improvement in this version, the user experience.

User Experience

The Houdini viewport and selection has always been finicky. This always made poly modeling tasks in Houdini a little irritating. Selecting polygons and vertices was always a bit of a hit and miss. With this version it seems that Side Effects finally listened to the users. Special attention has been put towards improving viewport interaction and selection. When you open Houdini 14, you are now greeted with a new gradient based viewport. This can be switched back to the default grey, if that is your preference. There is also an on-screen help for various functions.

A brand new point, polygon and edge loop and ring selection methods have been added and are much faster than anything available before. The viewport-based help provides the user with the shortcuts required to make the selections. The general method is to press the "A" key and use the mouse to make a loop or a ring selection.

There is also a new HUD that allows you to select elements based on Groups, UV connectivity or 3D connectivity.

There are new handles for box, sphere and grid objects. I hope more such handles are added to other tools in future releases as they make the modeling process more fluid. Also with every node that gets added viewport sliders show up with the relevant parameters.

The Move gizmo has been updated allowing the user to move the object in two axis at the same time, this was something that I have always missed since I shifted from 3DS Max. Also you can use the middle mouse button to indirectly drag the object.

Major improvements have been made to the UV Mapping and Unwrapping workflow. There are brand new UV flatten, Pelting and layout tools along with the ability to visualize UV Distortion.

A new and improved color picker has been added that has the ability to show color based on temperature. This is very helpful when setting colors for lights, since I prefer to set light colors based on temperature. You can also display a secondary color palette based on the current color selection.

Along with all this, viewport playback speed has also been improved tremendously. In a crowd scene that I tested with over 2000 agents the viewport showed no lag at all.

There have also been minor and major tweaks to the parameter interfaces of various nodes, most notably the Mantra render node which has been restructured in a more logical fashion.

There is also a new Digital Assets menu that makes for easier editing and loading of Digital Assets into Houdini. Also the native format for digital assets has been changed from .otl to .hda.

Overall a lot of thought has been put into making the workflow and user interaction more fluid and streamlined and even though things can be improved further, it is a very big step in the right direction.

Crowds

A brand new Crowd system has been added that is actually a very good showcase of how much the instancing, animation and viewport capabilities have been improved.

There is a new Crowd Shelf which has all the tools required to quickly set up a basic crowd simulation. Even though the resulting node tree can look complex the buttons on the shelf allow for a very simple click-based approach to setting things up. There are tools for putting crowds on a Path and even on a terrain. You can also add obstacles in their paths.

The crowds can be laid out in a grid like fashion or scattered randomly. According to the Houdini help this release contains the basic building blocks for setting up a Crowd system with many more improvements to come in the upcoming versions. But as it stands you can use these basic building blocks to create fairly complex Crowds.

Hair Grooming

Houdini had added a brand new set of Hair grooming tools into a new Hair grooming shelf set. These tools allow you to do a whole range of hair modifications.

The new tools allow for cutting, drawing and clumping of hair along with a whole host of other capabilities. The new tools also allow you to paint hair guides directly onto surfaces using a brush or even plant individual guides by clicking on a surface. The new tools work on Hair Guides and make it much easier to create longer hair instead of just fur.

They seemed to function slightly slowly in the viewport but this could be just an issue on my machine. But overall they are a big addition to the existing Hair and Fur tools in Houdini, especially for styling long hair.

Position-Based Solver and Dynamics

The other major addition to the Houdini VFX toolset in this version is the new position-based particle dynamics solver. This solver allows for a variety of effects including wet and dry sand and snow. You can also create soft body effects, thin sheets and strands.

The overall system is quite fast and robust. The setup once again is based on a few clicks of button from the shelf toolbar.

A new Pointdeform SOP has been added to the Geometry toolset which allows you to deform geometry based on particle movement. So it’s easy to transfer the PBD soft body effects to its relevant geometry. This is similar to the particle skinner modifier from 3DS Max.

A majority of the parameters are within the Grain Update node in DOPs (Dynamics) and the Grain Source Node in SOPS. These two nodes allow you to set up any kind of PBD effect that you would want. When you create a Granular Solid, Houdini automatically creates the node tree for the Pointdeform SOP. This definitely makes things easier. But overall this a great addition to the already massive and robust dynamics tool set in Houdini.

Other Improvements to Dynamics

Along with this there is now a colored blue line that appears in the timeline when a Dynamics Simulation is cached. It’s similar to the green line that appears in After Effects when you do a RAM preview.

In order to test out the Bullet Dynamics speed, I did a simple test of a collapsing tower made of 6800 boxes. Houdini 13 took nearly 2 mins 15 secs to calculate 50 frames, whereas Houdini 14 did the same simulation in 1 min 1 second. That's less than half the time, which was quite impressive.

I wasn’t able to test out the other dynamics tools but the help also says that the FEM solver and the FLIP solver have both received similar improvements in speed and memory management.

Animation

The channel editor which has been renamed to Animation Editor has received a major overhaul in this version.

The channels are now listed in collapsible groups which makes it easier to navigate. The curve display has been improved and there is also an automatic snapshot of the channel curve once you start modifying it with the option to revert back to the previous snapshot.

The Scale Handle tool has been revamped and enhanced and is now called Box Tool which can be activated by pressing Y on the keyboard. There is also an option to set the pivot of the Box tool to help you better control the scaling.

The other major addition to the animation toolset is the new Animation Layers system.

The system is quite easy to use. All you have to do is select any animated channel, go to the Animation Layers panel in the Animation Editor, click on the little gears icon and create and animation layer. This will create a base layer for your channel. Then you can create subsequent layers to add additional animation to your channel.

In the background this system creates a CHOPs network that stores the animation of every layer in its own Channel Node, which are then merged into a Layers Node. This allows for a lot of flexibility as you can go into the CHOPS network and modify these base nodes as you see fit. However the Layers Node should not be modified as the changes made in the CHOPS network do not reflect back in the Animation Layers panel.

Along with this, major improvements have been made to the animation playback and performance speed. Improvements have been made across the board to everything from Bone Display, Alembic playback, character deformation and even motion capture performance.

Other Additions and Improvements

Beyond these, there are numerous other minor improvements and changes made to the software. Below is a video review that goes over these enhancements and the features they bring.

At the modeling level, a new uniform scale parameter has been added to the basic primitives that makes scaling them a lot simpler.

The Scatter SOP has been totally rebuilt from the ground up. There are now ways to scatter points based on density, primitive area and even in texture space. A new relax option has been added to the Scatter SOP to prevent the points from overlapping. This distance can now be exported as a PSCALE attribute which can then be used to scale objects via the Copy Node.

There is a new Attribute Randomise SOP which allows you to randomise any attribute value. This can be extremely useful when used along with the Copy SOP as it can reduce the use of expressions.

The Mantra Surface model, the main Houdini material, has received an interface update. There is also the addition of the GGX Specular model and the specular angle parameter has been changed to Roughness. This is a good change as the naming is consistent with other popular renderers like V-Ray.

In Mantra there are now separate sampling controls for direct and indirect lighting. This allows for better control over how many rays will be used for indirect lighting. So if you have an exterior scene where mostly everything is illuminated via direct lighting then you can set less samples for indirect light and reduce render time.

Hair rendering has improved a lot. The hair shader has also been updated and there is now a new Transmission tab which allows for transparency.

A new option to render Points as Spheres has also been added. This is quite fast and also much more memory efficient than copying spheres onto points. This method is now the default method to render unconnected points instead of the previous method of using discs.

Conclusion

Overall, Houdini 14 is an excellent release. Not only does it add some exciting new features for VFX, namely Crowds and PBD solver, but it also greatly improves the user experience.

Houdini has always been slightly awkward for poly modeling, but with the improvements to the selection system, the viewport handles and HUD it feels a lot better. A Bridge tool like the one in 3DS Max would be a most welcome addition to the Houdini poly modeling toolset. It's one of the few poly modeling tools I miss from my days using 3DS Max. But overall I am quite happy with this release.

For those who are planning on learning Houdini, the thing to understand is that due to the procedural node-based approach of the software there will always be a higher learning curve. However, Side Effects has recently launched a new set of Quick Start videos on their site and along with these there are also a whole bunch of 3rd party free and paid tutorials available that have made getting into the software much easier than before.

If you don’t mind things getting technical and nodal then Houdini is a software that I would highly recommend.

Renowned animation school Supinfocom Arles has been producing some of the best CG animated shorts that have been released in the past 14 years: Meet Buck, Machu Picchu Post, A la Française, Omerta, Azúl, Ozo, The Cold Rush, Bet She’an, Home Sweet Home and many others.

The school has recently gone through a number of transformations, including changing its name to MOPA and transitioning into an autonomous institution. We talk to MOPA's Head of Studies, Julien Deparis, to find out the reasons behind these changes and MOPA's plans for the future of the school.

Supinfocom Arles has built a top quality reputation through more than a decade of work. What were the motivations for leaving this well known name behind and turning the school into an autonomous institution?

For fourteen years we were linked to the school in Valenciennes, which is the owner of the Supinfocom name. It is in order to protect the teaching methods at the Arles campus, our desire to keep our school at a human scale, and to work in a positive atmosphere that allows face-to-face engagement with our students that we have decided to assert our independence from Rubika.

For us, it’s the starting point of a new dynamic; our school is asserting its identity with the same values that have made it so renowned over the last fifteen years. The ambassadors of those values are the 400 Arles graduates that are now working throughout the world.

What changes will this bring for the school and for new students?

Just like our students, our school’s teaching methods are not static. They question and test issues around the fundamentals that have forged their reputation: passion, commitment and rigor. We have been working for some time to develop new digital tools for our students. Tools that they will use to make their films, but also new educational tools to improve the transmission of knowledge.

It’s the very fact that the size of our school is on a human scale, that it is flexible and reactive, that makes us able to explore new ways of learning. This is the great challenge of the decades to come for all educational institutions, and we wish to contribute our point of view on this vast and exciting project.

The Arles Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) has been supporting Supinfocom Arles since its foundation, what role will the CCI play now with MOPA?

The Arles Chamber of Commerce and Industry is an important partner for the school. They have confidence in us and are supporting us on this new adventure. The CCI will always play an important role in the school’s development. 

Some older students who graduated from Supinfocom Arles have asked questions regarding how this change will be affecting them. Does the new name imply any changes for old students or the diplomas they received?

The new name will not affect our former students, who are proud of the evolution of their school. In fact, many amongst them have retained an active role in the institution. For us, it is also an opportunity to involve them to an even greater degree in the discussions and debates that must take place at the school. We are currently applying for French state certification for the new MOPA degree, which will take over from the Supinfocom degree.

In the past decade, a big percentage of the best animated shorts have been coming from France. Your school has been one of the main institutions where these shorts have been produced. What do you think are the reasons for this trend, from the point of view of your school?

Perhaps one of the reasons is that the school is not an animation studio; we are a teaching institution. The films that we have made are the fruit of a close working relationship between the students and the teaching staff. We are here to guide them in their choices, and to give them a structure for their endeavours. They are both artists and narrators.

The CG image is at the crossroads of all the arts; it is an emerging aesthetic issue, a place of limitless experimentation. Through its singular nature, it offers a new way of seeing and describing the world. The school allows its students to develop their skills in order to participate in the development of this art, all through their professional life. It’s with the passion for developing this new language that we make films, and we are proud to have witnessed the positive reception that our films have been given throughout the world.

Julien Deparis
Head of Studies
MOPA
www.mopa-school.com

Introduction

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Plant Factory is a plant making tool by E-on Software that allows artists to create plants of all kinds from the smallest grass to the biggest oak trees and everything in between. It uses a node based system for generating plants as well as some innovative ways of controlling the shape of your plant in the viewport. It integrates with E-on’s Vue software but can also be used to export plants to your favorite 3D package complete with a full rig if you so desire.

First Impressions

When I first saw the videos of Plant Factory I was immediately intrigued by its workflow which seemed to blend both a procedural and a very artist friendly approach to making any kind of tree or plant – complete with wind animation.

The first thing I noticed when opening the software was that it comes with very few examples and barely none of them are very common except for perhaps the palm tree. There is a section when you load a plant that at first glance looks like an ordinary category but when you click on it, it points you to buying plants which almost reminded me of micro-transactions in “free-to-play” games. The prices at writing vary from around $15 to $50 so they aren’t what I would call cheap but that would depend on how much your time is worth. It was a bit disappointing to see but I was still excited about the interface and how you go about creating trees.

Distributing your plants

First I want to get a fairly hotly debated topic surrounding Plant Factory out of the way as it may or may not affect your purchasing decision. I’ll spare you most of the story but let’s just say that when Plant Factory was initially launched, there were severe limitations on how you could distribute your source or exported plants to other people. This caused quite a stir and E-on has mostly addressed this with the latest version, 2014.6, but there are still some limitations.

The rules now are that you are allowed to sell your plants but it must also be available on E-on’s Cornucopia website where they sell additional plants. It can also not be sold at more than 1.5x the price you sell it at elsewhere and you must specify in the filename that it was created with Plant Factory. In fact, the filename must start with “PlantFactory” and in the file’s description you must include “Created using E-on Software PlantFactory”.

This applies to exported meshes as well but the source Plant Factory file must be available on Cornucopia – meaning people who buy the Plant Factory file can change your nodes as they see fit and you have no say in it. You can’t just sell or give away the exported mesh. The EULA also specifically mentions static meshes, you are not allowed to sell or give away animated meshes. All this applies even if you just want to give your Plant Factory plant to a friend. You have to go through Cornucopia in that case as well, although it’s integrated as an option within Plant Factory. Whether this sounds like a big deal to you or not I’ll leave to each individual reading this review. (Note: more information regarding plant distribution limitations can be found on E-on's website)

Creating plants

You can go about creating trees in three different ways in Plant Factory. The first option you have is to just load a preset and use random seeds to generate variations of the plant very quickly – but as I mentioned there are very few presets that come with the software. You can load a preset and fairly easily modify it to get it to look like the plant you’re after. The few presets that do exist do cover the different types of plants, like flowers, bushes and trees.

The second option is similar, but instead of just loading the preset you get to draw the plant in the viewport. Say you want a palm tree that bends out over a beach, you have full control of the curvature of the main stem as you draw it out in the viewport while all the palm leaves will populate themselves automatically according to the rules set up in the preset. You also have the choice to draw out the leaves yourself from the stem and modify their orientation in the viewport. In both the first and second option you can modify its node graph to easily adjust its settings. There’s also a tool called “Prune” that lets you manually cut off specific branches in the viewport making you feel like a digital gardener.

The third option, and the most time consuming and perhaps daunting one, is to build one from scratch using the node graph. As with any system, it takes a little bit getting used to how it handles certain things but overall I’d say it was pretty easy to learn. It didn’t take me more than a day or two to feel comfortable with it. One of the key nodes is the loop node. With trees, for an example, you get a lot of repeated elements: The main trunk spawns branches, those branches spawn smaller branches and so on. Using the loop node you can set how many levels deep you want branches to spawn. This allows multiple branches to spawn and inherit properties from the previous node so that branches get smaller the more they branch of. After that you can add a node to add leaves or any other object. Any setup using nodes only you’ve created can also be recreated – once saved -- using the drawing a plant in the viewport feature I mentioned earlier.

While overall I give high marks to how the node system is set up, my main gripe is with its curve editor. Pretty much every parameter can be controlled by a curve – like the radius over the length of a branch for an example. So the curve editor is important in the creation of each element of the plant. One of the gripes I have with it is I haven’t found a way to restrict moving the vertices on the curve up/down or left/right. This makes fine adjustments a bit of a pain. There’s also some lacking features when controlling the vertices’ tangents – like the fact that all tangents have to have the same interpolation.

Perhaps the biggest problem the curve editor has caused me is when trying to make round petals that don’t have any sharp edges. I’ve noticed this issue on the included presets too when you zoom in. From far away this isn’t a big deal but the closer you get the bigger the problem gets. You can solve it with an opacity map but ideally I’d like to see this addressed in the software.

Another criticism I have is how little control you have over imported objects. There is an import object node but it only has the most basic features such as transform. There’s no way to spawn children from an imported object and I don’t quite see why this wasn’t included. This pretty much forces imported objects to only be added at the very end of a graph. It also lacks “Axis Perturbation”, a feature that other nodes have that allows you to add a bit of random noise (akin to putting a noise modifier onto an object in 3DS Max) to each object that is created. This would have been handy to create a bit of variety. It’s certainly very handy on the nodes that has it.

Overall I would say the ease of use factor is really good while also allowing the user to customize almost all details easily through the nodes. I always feel in control and I can create plants very quickly, and create variations of those plants at the touch of a button or by drawing it in the viewport. This is praise I can’t give many other plant generating tools out there. Using the node graph I can take nodes from one preset and combine it with nodes from another preset – one of the many advantages of a node based system for any creation tool – or just modify nodes a bit to get one preset plant to look like what I am after.

User Interface

The viewports are nice, clean and easy to get the grips with. You can customize them according to your workflow like making the node graph window bigger if you are setting up a new plant or make it go away if you are working with presets only. The plant casts shadows onto the ground plane and you can easily rotate the source light to get a good look at your plant from all angles. Other options include the ability to view the amount of polygons the plant is made of and view the height of the plant. You can easily view the bones of the rig with the click of a button.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to turn off textures in viewports without actually disabling them in the material editor. If you’re on a slow computer and you are using a lot of maps, this can turn into a bit of an issue though it wasn’t really a problem for me on my i3930k with an Nvidia 670 GTX game card. The only other issue to me with the viewports was that it’s really hard to see the wireframe and there’s nowhere to change how they are displayed that I could see. Even when selected, the wireframe is very thin lines of black.

While it’s a small feature, I would like to give major credit to E-on Software for including the option to customize how you navigate your viewports. This really should be a standard feature in all 3D software in my opinion. Since I am used to 3DS Max mostly I was able to quickly set it up so I navigate the viewports the same way. You can also rearrange and resize the different panels to wherever you want them, including putting them on a second screen.

Wind and exporting

What I find very important in any scene that includes plants is the presence of wind. Even on days where there’s very little wind it’s very rare that there’s none. Adding wind gives life to your scene and thankfully Plant Factory includes options for setting up your plant to blow in the wind. With today’s new game consoles having more memory, developers are able to include wind animation in games so it’s not just relevant for pre-rendered scenarios any more. In every node you can specify how flexible you want that part of the plant to be. With the ability to preview wind in the viewport, it’s easy to adjust these settings and immediately see the effects.

While you can export the wind animation as baked into the vertices, you can also export the rig itself including the animation. You have some control over how they are created for optimization's sake but mainly they are automatically placed along each segment and where new segments are spawned. This rig can then be exported to your 3D software of choice using FBX with or without the wind animation that you’ve set up. If you prefer to export the wind animation baked into the vertices you can do that as well.

On the topic of exporting, I am unhappy that the plant generated is made out of a mix of triangles and quads. This is to optimize the mesh and makes sense most of the time but let’s say you would like to take in the trunk to ZBrush or Mudbox to sculpt on top of it, you don’t have a very clean mesh to subdivide. This is a real shame as often I like to add my own little touches.

Season and Age

There’s also the ability to set up your plants to react according to season and age and setting this up is a bit trickier than just creating a plant. One of the included examples uses some simple Python and a lot of nodes to define the aging and seasons. It’s unfortunate that there’s no way to animate these parameters and export the plants with the animation into your 3D software. However, it is possible to animate these parameters in Vue. Plant Factory and Vue work very well together and you are able to randomize the plants and populate them in Vue quickly.

Rendering

When it comes to rendering, Plant Factory comes with one that seems to be very similar to the one in E-on’s terrain creation tool Vue – most likely based on the same code as the layout and settings are so similar. The preview render mode is fast and gives you a great idea of how your plants will look like in sunlight with global illumination. Bump up the quality a bit and you get some nice anti-aliasing but of course it takes a bit longer to render. Since you’re not really going to be using this for final renders, it does its job for what you need it for but not much more so don’t expect advanced render options.

One annoying thing is that once you’ve reached the set limit of allocated space for storing previous renders, a pop up will appear each time you finish a render and it doesn’t give you the option to delete all old renders so the pop up will keep appearing until you increase the allocated space or go in and manually delete all the old renders.

Grow on objects

Even though I am mentioning this feature last, it is one of Plant Factory’s highlights. Plant Factory allows you to have your plants collide with and grow on any imported geometry. This makes it very easy to create vines or other plants that you want to wrap around an object. It works really well and I was very happy with how fast and stable this option was. This is something that would be time consuming to model by hand but with Plant Factory you can model great looking wall crawling plants in just a few clicks.

Conclusion

Overall Plant Factory is everything I hoped it would be and can be used for both game applications and pre-rendered scenarios. It also integrates very well with Vue for those who like to use the landscape creating software for matte paintings and environments. It has just the right amount of procedural control mixed with artist control so that you are able to create any plant imaginable.

I see myself using it any time I want trees or plants but I do hope they increase the amount of included presets as I do feel this is its weakest point. The other main criticism is how little control you have over the imported geometry node, especially the fact that it does not allow child nodes making it so you can’t spawn other nodes on from your custom geometry. My final verdict of Plant Factory is almost complete praise and a much needed tool that I wish I would have had on many projects in the past but also one that could use a few improvements in the future.

The news about the framework being developed by Artur Leao, Daniel Santana and Jonathan de Blok, and its related plugins have been received with a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity. The project has been renamed to Nyx Framework (it was previously known as Nexus) and is being developed through You can do it! VFX. We had the pleasure of talking to Artur Leao to find out more information about the framework and what new possibilities it will bring to CG artists and production studios.

What is the Nyx Framework?

Nyx Framework is in its core a communication framework that makes it easier for developers, including us, to have proper way to send data back and forth between multiple DCC apps like 3DS Max, Maya, After Effects, Nuke, Photoshop, etc.

If you look at Nyx DBR, it's being used within a single software package (3DS Max) while Voltron shows it's interoperability strengths by having 3DS Max communicating with After Effects.

It's a tool for TDs, to which we would like to remove the burden of handling low level network and protocol handling. Using Nyx communication between apps is as high level as sending an email. As a TD you will be able to write your own Nyx plugins which can be software agnostic and only a small portion of it needs to be written specifically for the software you want to support (mostly just UI).

We also have a system that helps developers with licensing their own plugins and coming from a small developer/scripter background we know how much of a hassle that can be, so hopefully Nyx Framework will empower smaller studios and developers to release their plugins and tools without the need to worry about licensing.

Currently we are supporting C# but Python might be an option too.

You have announced two applications based on the framework that are being actively developed: DBR and Voltron. What features do they offer?

Nyx DBR is a distributed rendering plugin that is render agnostic, which means it will work with most of the commercial renderers available for 3DS Max. For us, that is one of its best features, you as a user will be able to keep your workflow consistent when rendering with Iray, V-Ray, Corona, etc.

In its current status, Nyx DBR allows you to do selective scene updates, with other DBR systems you need to keep sending the entire scene over and over again. For example you can send over a new or changed camera and redo the shot.

Cherry on top of the cake is the fact that you can submit your render, get immediate feedback from all slaves while you keep working on your 3DS Max instance. No interruption whatsoever, Nyx DBR does not block your app.

Nyx Voltron shows a bit of what can be done with Nyx Framework and it's a plugin that aims to connect most of Adobe's CC apps to 3DS Max. First things first: 3DS Max to After Effects.

We were able to build a bidirectional flow between the two programs and you can easily link objects between the two apps, share the same timeline and timeline control, and in our latest iteration we have After Effects reproducing 3DS Max object hierarchy without hassle. We have basic support for curves, whatever curve/animation setup you have in 3DS Max, you will get exactly the same in After Effects and vice versa, as you can see from some of our development videos.

All of this happens in realtime and without baking any keys. Press a button and you're done.

When do you expect to release them?

Right now, we are in pre-alpha stage for Nyx DBR, which is very very early in development and our plan is to release when we feel we have a good stable product, so for now we would prefer not to rush and throw dates.

I can tell you something else though, although we are very early in development we decided to implement an "Early Adopter" system for our products, which means we are opening slots for sales on each development stage (Pre-Alpha, Alpha and Beta) and in return we offer those "Early Adopters" a good discount and of course they get access to the plugin right now. For now this is just available for Nyx DBR but it will be soon available for Nyx Voltron too. This will also allow us to have feedback early in development and adjust our features to the needs of our users.

Nyx DBR has a Standard License (99€) that allows you to use up to 10 nodes and Plus License (179€) allows you to use up to 100 Nodes. We have 20 open slots for Nyx DBR as an "Early Adopter" at 20% discount. Feel free to contact us at info@ycdivfx.com if you are interested.

We have a specific license scheme for Render Farms too, contact us for more details on that.

You have stated that the stand-alone Nyx Framework will allow developers to create tools for CG applications other than 3DS Max and After Effects. When do you plan to make it available?

That is true and we hope to release it as soon as possible. We feel we have its core functionality already at a good place but it's still too soon to say dates.

It will probably only happen after we release both Nyx DBR and Nyx Voltron. These projects allows us to foresee limitations and fix them before releasing the Nyx Framework to the public, therefore it will be production proven.

We already have some documentation and we will have some sample plugins for TDs to use as first step into the Nyx Framework.

What kind of applications could be developed with it?

Well, you name it! I can tell you we have some cool ideas and I'm sure that once we get the Nyx Framework into the hands of TDs they will be able to build a lot of creative stuff. I would say that it will be a very good support tool for pipeline work inside studios making it easier to handle multiple DCC apps like most studios nowadays do. You can either write your own pipeline tools or just write support tools to integrate in your current pipeline.

What's in store for the future of Nyx?

Right now we are focusing on getting features done for Nyx DBR and getting Nyx Voltron into pre-alpha. We have been trying to set small goals so they can feel achievable, for us and for our users.

We have some higher scope plans and ideas but it's too early to discuss them, let's talk again when we release our first products. :)

How did the project start and how did the three of you get involved in coding it?

Oh, that is an easy question, End User Event is the answer. But let's go back a bit. Me, Daniel Santana and Jonathan de Blok have been active in the 3DS Max/Maxscript community for some years and also on the 3DS Max Beta, we knew and were inspired by each others' works for quite some time.

Then two years ago I had the chance to sit down and talk to Jonathan at EUE where he told me about this project he thought of and had developed a prototype. I was blown away and thought it was super cool. I had been doing some work with network communication with my iDevCam project but this was different, even so, life kicked in and another year gone by.

Fast forward to last EUE, the three of us did a small brainstorm on how we could take that prototype into something bigger that we could share with others, and also on the best ways to actually develop as a 3 man team, which is a bit different than working solo.

Right now I'm moving to Portugal to setup You can do it! VFX as a studio for CG and Software Development along with Daniel Santana and we will be working with Jonathan de Blok on the Nyx Framework and its plugins.

Anything you'd like to add?

Actually, we do. We would like to say thanks for all the support we've been having from the community and our friends in the industry and take this chance to announce that a third product called Nyx Iris, another plugin for the Nyx Framework.

Nyx Iris is a virtual viewfinder that is based on a previous prototype I wrote and you can find some videos on Vimeo (video 1-video 2). It will allow you to use your tablet or smartphone to control the 3DS Max camera while streaming in realtime the viewport to the device as you can see in one of the videos. There will also be some playback/streaming specific features but I would say that its key feature is the fact you can record your movements in realtime to your 3DS Max camera, while playing back the animation of the 3D scene. This is something that big studios usually do with very expensive motion capture systems, like the ones used on Avatar and Rango. We want to be able to offer a similar virtual 3D filmmaking solution that is affordable to every user.

We will start development on Nyx Iris on January 2015, so you can hope more news by then!

Thanks!!!

Introduction

Autodesk's recent announcement that they'll be phasing out permanent licenses as an option for purchasing their software has caused strong reactions. The shift from permanent licenses to a rental model is a significant one and some have suggested that this is a trend that will spread to other software developers. But is this really the case? Will artists find themselves with no choice but to rent their paintbrushes? Will other major 3D developers change their licensing policies, too?

In order to help fellow artists and bring some certainty to the matter, we have asked major 3D software developers (based on the most frequent ones mentioned by comments on this site) if they plan to keep permanent licenses as a purchase option in the foreseeable future, or if they expect to move to a rental/subscription-only model.

Developers' replies

Side Effects, developers of Houdini
"There are currently no plans to stop selling permanent licenses to our customers. Houdini and Houdini FX are our commercial versions and we offer a choice between permanent and rental (subscription) licensing. Our products under $1000 such as Houdini Indie and Houdini Engine are subscription only."

The Foundry, developers of Modo
"Actually, The Foundry already offers rentals/subscription on some products, since way back, and we'll continue doing so. But we also plan to keep permanent licenses as a purchase option too."

Maxon Computer, developers of Cinema 4D
"There are currently no plans to stop offering permanent licenses. If in the future MAXON decides to make a subscription model available on a monthly basis or something similar, we will offer this as an additional option, not as a replacement."

The Blender Foundation, developers of Blender
"Blender's GNU GPL license firmly establishes it as a Free Software project, which guarantees that Blender will remain free forever - free as in freedom for users and developers.

That doesn't mean we do things for free - there's currently already 10 people working on Blender who get paid and supported by the Blender Development Fund and Blender Institute's store and cloud services. I welcome everyone to reconsider their software budgets for 2015, and take a look at how Blender could fit in your pipeline after all. We're open!

I would also like to add that artists should seek for software providers that share their passion for the medium. Choose to work with relaxed and accessible companies or projects who love to work with you on making awesome stuff. There's still a healthy market with smaller parties like Maxon, the Foundry, Sidefx, Newtek, SolidAngle, and similar organizations - they deserve to be flourishing and be successful."

Introduction

[specs-box]

Lab is a plugin for 3DS Max that allows you to create other plugins that add new functionality to the software. It uses a node-based UI and enables you to create geometry objects, modifiers, spline objects, animation controllers, procedural textures and world space modifiers (for particles).

Ease of use

One of the things Ephere mentions is how easy it is to create new plugins using its interface. The company claims that you need no programming knowledge, something this reviewer doesn't completely agree with, especially if you intend to get serious with Lab. If you don't have a lot of experience scripting or coding you might actually find Lab overwhelming at first.

Having a basic understanding of programming and a fairly solid understanding of how 3D geometry is built up is essential when beginning to create plugins in Lab. Comparing Lab to other node-driven plugins for Max, like Thinkbox's Magma interface or Cebas' ThinkingParticles, Lab is definitely a bit more complex. Given the range of plugins that Lab can create, this is perhaps a necessity, though some concepts could have probably been simplified a bit.

The inclusion of more custom nodes that do a lot of common tasks would help ease new users into Lab. There are some, and they are very helpful, but more are needed for those who are new to the software.

It's worth noting that while you can create world space modifiers to alter the motion of standard 3DS Max particle systems (not including Particle Flow), you cannot create spacewarps. This means that if you were hoping to use Lab to create spacewarps to generate forces for any plugin where you need to define a spacewarp then this might disappoint you. While this is a shame, Lab is still able to create a very wide range of plugins.

Interface

The interface itself is pretty straightforward and doesn't take very long to get to grips with, especially after browsing through the documentation. One particularly great feature is the implementation of "meta nodes". By grouping together nodes that you often use and saving them as a meta node, it will show up in the library of nodes that you can re-use whenever you need to. By double clicking on a meta node you can see how it was constructed and what nodes were involved.

The suggestion mentioned earlier regarding the inclusion of more custom nodes that do a lot of common tasks could be implemented as additional meta nodes, so that while they could ease the creation of certain tasks, one could also easily open them up to see how they were constructed.

If there is one gripe I have about the user interface at the moment is that it doesn't save the positions you left your nodes in. For those who like to keep nodes neatly organized, this can be frustrating. This is especially important in more complex setups.

It's also worth mentioning that you can group any nodes. Double clicking a grouped node will open up a new sub-graph containing the nodes you grouped. This is exactly the same as using meta nodes except that the grouped nodes are only saved with that graph and can't be re-used outside of the plugin you are working on.

Features

The fact that you can create so many different types of plugins in a unified interface is really fantastic. With the Point and Polygon modifiers you can create a wide array of modifiers and since you have access to time -- defined in seconds rather than frames -- almost any value can be animated inside the graph.

There's also a powerful script node that can be used for running C# code, in case you run out of options in Lab. You can do almost as much using Lab's mesh modifiers as you can with Thinkbox's Genome. However, Genome's Magma interface is much easier to understand if you are not a programmer and its documentation is much better. But of course Lab does so much more than just mesh modifiers.

In a lot of ways it's comparing apples to oranges, even when just comparing the mesh modifier to Genome. The main reason is because while Genome is custom made for 3DS Max and its properties, Lab has no general idea of 3DS Maxspecific information -- for good and for bad. That's probably the biggest issue with Lab, and this is probably due to Ephere's bigger vision of "Coden" where you write for one platform and then it's compatible with other platforms such as Maya.

The GUIz that you can create with Lab seem slightly constricted, there's no curve GUI element for example (Ephere mentioned this is on their to-do list), no layer GUI for managing several objects, and no sliders. Based on what I could find, you are limited to check boxes, value spinners, pick object buttons and lists for adding multiple objects (and that last one wasn't documented anywhere that I could find).

One great feature of Lab is that once you've created a plugin, you can share them with anyone -- including people that don't own a copy of Lab. The only caveat is that whoever wants to use your plugin will have to download and install Coden (which is free). Right now there aren't that many publicly available plugins but hopefully that will grow as Lab gains popularity.

There are some nifty ones up on Ephere's website however, like a Tessendorf modifier for applying ocean waves to any geometry. From the same author there are also a flocking modifier, crude height-field wake generator and voxelizer available for download. In these cases quite a bit of C# was used, so it would be difficult for a non-programmer to achieve the same results on their own.

Performance

I'm happy to report that Lab itself is multi-threaded in multiple ways. Structuring your graph to run the nodes concurrently is key to maximizing core usage. The responsiveness of Lab's GUI is very good and the fact that you can group nodes together makes it easier to create manageable flows. Fairly frequently I have run into bugs (at the time of writing this article, I was using 1.0.4.0). Thankfully they don't crash 3DS Max allowing you to save your scene (and your Lab graph) before restarting. As for Ephere's support, they have been quick at responding to any issues. However, at this stage, I would say that Lab is not as stable as I'd like it to be.

Creating a plugin

In order to put Lab to the test I created a modifier that turns a mesh into a spline that follows the mesh's vertex order. With some simple math I was able to include a start and end user input (in percentage) and by animating those values you get the effect of the spline traveling or growing along the mesh. Once I understood technically how to make this plugin, it was extremely quick to put together the graph.

I have some nagging issues as I'd like to take it further. One such issue is that I can't change the interpolation of my spline vertices. Lab does not allow access to 3DS Max-specific information although it is supposedly possible to access Maxscript through the C# node by referencing an Autodesk DLL, but I can't confirm this since I have no idea how this is done and there's no documentation on doing this.

However I did feel a nice sense of accomplishment when I got to where it's at and this particular example ended up being quite easy. Once I was done with the plugin, I saved it out as a re-usable plugin but after restarting 3DS Max it showed up as a spline object instead of a modifier. This is because Lab determines the type of plugin by the graph's inputs and outputs and since mine outputs a spline it decided to save it out as a spline object. At the moment there's no way around this.

If you want to play around with the custom plugin, you can download it in Cortex format if you have Lab so you can use it as a modifier, or if you don't have Lab you can install Coden and then download the spline object plugin (instructions here).

Documentation

The documentation is not as comprehensive as it could be. Some written documentation is available as well as a number of Youtube videos. The videos are not bad (except for the compression quality) but there's a certain inconsistency in the things that are explained and the ones that are just skipped over. Also, there aren't enough videos to really cover a significant amount of ground, but one can expect the video library to grow over time.

The videos that helped me the most are the ones that explain broader concepts rather than trying to achieve a very particular plugin. For example, the video of how to generate a segmented plane with user inputs is great as it also goes through explaining the theory behind it. Hopefully we'll see more of these types of tutorials.

Conclusion

Lab is not what I would call an easy plugin to learn for a Max user without programming knowledge -- especially with the documentation being on the somewhat light side. Once you do learn it however, it's an incredibly powerful plugin tool can help you create a great variety of plugins. The fact that it's multi-threaded also gives it a great advantage over Maxscript (though one obviously shouldn't expect it to be a complete replacement, either).

It's hard to recommend Lab to every Max artist at this time, but it clearly does have a lot of potential. Before Lab becomes a must-have plugin, though, I feel a number of things need to be fixed: the lack of documentation, some frustrating bugs which will hopefully be ironed out soon, the addition of more simplified general purpose nodes and the inclusion of some fairly important GUI controls that are currently missing.

It feels perhaps as if the software was released a little bit prematurely. One also can't help but be disappointed that it doesn't provide direct access to 3DS Max-specific information, and this is perhaps my biggest criticism regarding Lab. Despite these criticisms I expect it to grow over time into a great plugin and for the very technical artists out there who know programming, there's a lot you can already accomplish with it. For the rest of us, I feel Lab still has some ways to go before it should be in every user's toolset.

You can download a demo version of Lab to try it out for yourself. Checking out the videos on Ephere's Youtube channel is another way of seeing if you think the plugin is right for you. Lastly, it should be mentioned that pricing is very fair at $295, allowing both freelancers and studios to purchase affordable licenses.

Introduction

[specs-box]

RealFlow is a fluid simulation software developed by Next Limit that offers an out-of-the-box simulation tool for creating both large and small scale fluids, ocean surfaces, and rigid body dynamics. Built on over 15 years of research and development, RealFlow 2013 presents its users with a new node-based creation environment.

In this review we will be looking at the latest release of RealFlow, examining the new features it has to offer.

Overview

When talking about visual effects and fluid simulations, the first tool that comes to most people's mind is RealFlow (RF). Being around for more than 15 years, it has built a reputation of being the go-to software for creating fluid simulations. RF has been used by many studios of all sizes to create effects that can be seen in various blockbuster films like Avengers, 2012, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. RF offers a true 3D environment where users have access to various types of emitters, forces, and fluid settings, that can allow them to create and direct their fluid simulations. Data can then be exported to their 3D package of choice.

Next Limit provides plugins to various 3D packages including 3DS Max, Maya, and Cinema 4D, to name a few. This gives users the ability to transfer data back and forth between RF and their native 3D package. Until the past few releases of Houdini, which now has its own fluid solver, RF was the main go-to software for creating fluids.

The past year or so has allowed RealFlow to really shine, as its main contender, Naiad (now code-named BiFrost), was purchased by Autodesk and taken off the market for further integration into Autodesk software. Currently the only other off-the-shelf toolset that really gives RealFlow any serious competition would be Houdini from SideFX Software, with FXGear's Flux recently entering the market.

What's new in RealFlow 2013

RF 2013 brings a lot of new features and enhancements to the table. The biggest and most notable addition is the node-based relationship editor and simulation graphs. Now users have the ability to build and create complex simulations with ease through the use of the node-based interface. Creating emitters, expressions, containers, and daemons through right-click or tab-based menus is a breeze.

The ability to render previews through Next Limit's Maxwell Renderer is also a new and powerful feature. RF 2013 also offers many improvements to their Hybrido solver, which is used is creating larger scale simulations. In addition to the new base solver for Hybrido, the new splash and foam emitters have seen some refinement, which allows them to simulate much faster than previous releases. Improvements have also been made to RF's meshing algorithms, which account for thinner, and more detailed meshes. The fracturing tool in RF has also seen some updates that gives users faster simulations and more control. Last, but not least, RF 2013 now offers support for the Alembic file format that offers greater flexibility to your pipeline and provides a very efficient way to manage data interchange between different software packages.

User Interface

The biggest and most notable change in RF 2013 is the UI. Users now have access to a node-based method of building and setting up their simulations. In previous releases of RF, everything was built and created via the main menu system. Users would choose the menu, select the item they wanted, and it would be created in the viewport. Now, simply using the Tab key will give you a floating menu anywhere in the viewport that gives you access to everything needed for creating a simulation. While this feature has been on other software for the past few years, it is a welcomed addition to the interface and I found this feature sped up the general workflow, and almost becomes second nature once you have used it a few times.

The new relationship editor in RF 2013 makes navigating your scene much, much easier. It gives users a quick way to decipher exactly what is going on in their scenes with just a quick glance. When Naiad (now BiFrost) made its first public appearance a few years back, a lot of people were keen on the node-based interface (myself included). I remember trying out Naiad and being impressed at how easy it was to set up simulations, and get an exact sense of what was going on without having to poke around and guess which node was affecting which. It is really nice to see that Next Limit has implemented a similar approach in RF 2013.

Being able to neatly organize and color code your nodes is a simple way to make sure your scenes do not become confusing or redundant. Even something as simple as adding notes to the editor, to explain what is going on in the scene, is a little but nice feature when you are working in a production and maybe have to hand off your scenes to another artist. These new interface features are indeed nice, but those who are reluctant to change have the option of using the same interface they are used to from previous releases.

The last major change to the interface in RF 2013 is the addition of the Simulation Graph, a new and powerful system for visual programming using graph networks within the interface. Formerly Simulation Events, the Simulation Graph offers an environment for creating and/or editing bits of code (i.e. expressions/scripts/plugins) during a simulation that allow to create, modify, or extract data from elements in your scene. The Simulation Graph allows users to get that extra control they are looking for when using RF. It aims to make daily programming tasks within RF much easier.

The only issue I have with this feature is that it can be a bit difficult to find. For something that is so powerful, one would think it would be at the front and center of the interface. Not a big issue, but I would suggest the developers to consider adding a default tab that would allow quick access without having to dig through the menu system.

Hybrido 2

With the introduction of Hybrido in RF5, Next Limit brought the ability to do medium and large scale fluid simulations. Previously, creating effects like waterfalls, floods, and rivers was a difficult task. RF 2013 expands on this capability by introducing Hybrido 2: now Next Limit's FLIP-based solver can handle millions of particles, without the overhead of expensive simulation times. Simply put, you can now simulate 50 million or more particles without having to wait forever for it to sim out. Being able to simulate this many particles results in higher detail and much more complex simulations. Foam and splashes have been improved upon as well.

Creating and using Hybrido 2 in RF 2013 is as simple as creating a Domain node. Once this has been created, we have full access to the Hybrido settings. Next step is to simply connect your geometry, emitters, and daemons to the Domain and we are ready for simulating. Adjusting parameters like cell size give your simulation more detail, but at the cost of longer simulation times.

Another feature of Hybrido 2 is the ability to offload the simulations from the CPU, and onto the GPU. I was unable to test this on my current system, but Next Limit claims that users with higher-end video cards can notice speed boosts in their simulation times. Multiple GPUs are supported currently, but Next Limit notes that there are some issues with various graphic cards; mainly AMD boards.

Caronte Solver - Improved Fracturing / Rigid Bodies

RF provides a solid rigid bodies engine via the Caronte Body Dynamics Solver, which allows for complex simulations involving rigid bodies and soft bodies. What makes it really useful is that the dynamics can be driven via a fluid simulation. In the accompanying video below, for example, I have tested a vehicle that is being pushed into a wall by the force of a fluid. Eventually the force becomes great enough that it breaks the wall which is being held together via a joints system. The Caronte solver worked like a charm, offering a smooth way of combining both rigid/soft body dynamics, and the Hybrido fluid into one contained simulation.

RF 2013 also brings more power to the fracturing tool designed for breaking up geometry in a simulation. Regardless of the format, you can now fracture geometry using various methods to add more realism to your scenes. The fracturing tool can handle dense geometry without a hitch, and offers users complete control over how their meshes are fractured.

RF 2013 provides the possibility of fracturing meshes with other objects, via the Voronoi by Steering Geometry and Voronoi By Points tools. Radial fractures can also be created using the simple parameters in the Voronoi Radial tool, to control how detailed and where the fractures are placed on your models. The re-timing tool also allows to re-time simulations without having to re-simulate which is a big time saver.

Maxwell / OpenGL Previews

RF 2013 has introduced another great feature that allows for previewing of simulations through Next Limit's Maxwell Renderer. Previously, users would have to mesh their simulations, export them to an outside package, and render them to get an idea of what things might look like. Now we have the option to render directly within the RF interface, which is a welcome addition and really speeds up the look & development phase. No Maxwell license is needed to render previews, and users have preset materials to use on the simulations, plus the option of importing their own materials. Rendering previews through Maxwell supports geometry, Hybrido emitters, as well as splash and foam emitters. Simply throw in some materials, change a few options to control quality and time of the Maxwell preview, and you are done.

We even have the ability now to render previews through the job manager, or through the command line, which really speeds things up and keeps the pipeline running smoothly. The Maxwell preview is a really great feature that enables users to get a sense of what their simulations will look like once fully rendered. RF 2013 also provides users with the ability to do OpenGL previews as long as their video card supports it.

Connectivity

RF's ability to easily plug into an everyday pipeline is a fundamental reason why so many freelancers and studios use it. One doesn't need a programmer to write tools that allow you to transfer data to and from RF into your 3D package of choice. Upon installing RF, you have the ability to install various plugins that come standard. These plugins allow for the transfer of particle data to and from RF to a package like 3DS Max.

The plugin for 3DS Max, for example, gives users a set of tools that allows them to send their particle setups from Particle Flow or ThinkingParticles to RF where they can be used to drive or influence fluid simulations. Inversely, users can also send RF particle data over to 3DS Max where it can be rendered through any one of the renderers supported. The RF plugin can be accessed in 3DS Max through a toolbar which gives both import and export options to transfer the data back and forth. Overall the workflow is pretty straightforward and has not changed that much in this release. The addition of Alembic file format, however, greatly improves the ability to transfer data back and forth between your 3D package and RF 2013.

Licensing & Support

RF does not come cheap, but if you have the budget and are looking to do realistic fluid effects Next Limit offers a few licensing choices. You can straight up buy a license which is currently at $3,995 (includes one year of support) but there is also the option of renting a license for a week for $250. This is a great option for smaller studios and freelancers. Next Limit also provides an educational license for the price of $99, which gives access to all features with the exception of XML import/export. The educational license is permanent, so it allows new users to learn the software at their own pace.

Next Limit has also created a great forum where users can download test scenes, tutorials and documentation. I found this to be a great asset when starting out. Learning a new software can be daunting, but Next Limit has really stepped up and provided some great resource materials. These clearly explain how RF 2013 works and how the new features can be best used in production.

Also, the demo scenes that come with the default install of RF 2013 help a lot. They cover many of the new features and show how to correctly setup scenes, so users can start simulating fluids right away. These scenes serve as a very nice way to learn the software at your own pace as well, as each demo file has a written description of what is going on in the scene, and how the general workflow is set up.

Conclusion

I am really impressed with this latest release of RF. It shows that Next Limit has really listened to what their customers wanted and have implemented new features that make an already great software even better. The new interface offers a nice and simple approach to creating fluid effects through its node-based layout, but retains the look and feel of previous releases, so as to not discourage or alienate previous users. The addition of the Simulation Graph that allows users to create and manipulate simulation data easily is another powerful feature of RF 2013.

The license price is a bit on the hefty side, but considering what RF 2013 is capable of and what it is designed for, I see it as a very worthwhile investment. I found RF 2013 to be a solid and very reliable tool for creating realistic fluid simulations. The latest features add to an already comprehensive toolset that is production ready and capable of creating some amazing effects.

If you are in need of a tool that creates believable fluid and rigid body simulations, fits into your already existing pipeline, and is well supported, then RealFlow 2013 is the way to go.