With Phoenix FD 3.12 we have focused on adding many frequently requested features, improving usability and integration in 3ds Max.
Ocean Mesh with Physical Camera and all V-Ray camera types
The ocean mesh in Phoenix is generated in camera space, so it needs to be aware of all the camera options and all camera types. With Phoenix FD 3.12, the Ocean Mesh mode now supports all parameters of the V-Ray Physical Camera and the built-in 3ds Max Physical Camera.
We've also added support for all V-Ray camera types that are available under the V-Ray Render Settings - Spherical, Cylindrical, Box, Fisheye, Warped spherical, Ortho, 360 Virtual Reality Spherical Panorama and Cube 6x1 cameras.
Instancing and referencing of Phoenix FD Simulators
In versions prior to 3.12, Phoenix FD could only instance Simulators in Mesh render mode. Now you can manually instance Simulators across the scene for preview and rendering in both Volumetric render modes, as well as the Isosurface and Ocean Mesh modes.
Additionally, now you can have Simulators instanced for simulation as well. This means all Simulators will 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.
Note that instancing of Simulators using VRayInstancer is currently being implemented in V-Ray and will be available soon.
Support for Scene and Object XRefs
Adding the ability to instance Simulators in 3ds Max also paves the way for being able to XRef Simulators and Particle Shaders. Caches loaded by the Simulators will be correctly picked in object and scene XRefs by the volumetric shader and Particle Shaders when using explicit cache paths or using the default $(...) Phoenix macros.
Note that if you manually merge the XRefs into a scene where they were XRef-ed into, any $(dir) or $(scene) macros of XRef-ed Simulators will be automatically unrolled to the full directory and scene name of the XRef-ed scene, so Simulators will be able to find their caches from inside the new scene they were merged into.
Textures support for volumes on V-Ray Next GPU
Now texture mapping the color and opacity of fire and smoke works on V-Ray Next GPU as well. Requires a V-Ray Next nightly build.
Complete changelog:
NEW GPU VOLUMETRICS Support for textures for volume rendering with V-Ray Next GPU
NEW OCEAN MESHER Support for all parameters of the V-Ray and 3ds Max Physical Camera types when creating an Ocean Mesh
NEW OCEAN MESHER Support for all V-Ray camera types when creating an Ocean Mesh - Spherical, Cylindrical, Box, Fish eye, Warped spherical, Ortho, Spherical panorama, Cube 6x1
NEW SIM INSTANCING Instancing and referencing for rendering and preview of Simulators in non-mesh render modes
NEW SIM INSTANCING Instancing and referencing of Simulators during simulation
NEW 3DS MAX INTEGRATION Support for Simulators and Particle Shaders in Scene and Object XRefs
NEW SCRIPTING MaxScript interface for getting grid data and loading render presets directly from the Simulator nodes. The new functions are loadRenderPreset, setCoordSys, getVelocity, getRGB, getTemperature, getSmoke, getFuel
NEW SCRIPTING New MaxScript functions for saving a Simulator render preset to file - <node>.saveRenderPreset <path> and A_SaveRenderPreset <node> <path>
NEW SCRIPTING New MaxScript functions for saving and loading a Simulator's simulation preset to file - loadSimPreset, saveSimPreset, A_LoadRenderPreset, A_SaveRenderPreset
IMPROVED FLIP SOLVER WetMap now has different sticky effect against different liquid viscosities
IMPROVED VOLUMETRIC SHADER Exposed the hidden grid-based motion blur algorithm from Phoenix FD 3.00.01 for use via the 'mbgrid' script parameter
IMPROVED SOURCES Discharge Modifiers by Particle Size
IMPROVED CACHE I/O Support for the new transformation model of OpenVDB caches from FumeFX 5
IMPROVED CACHE I/O New default $(scene_path) macro for simulation cache Output expands to "$(scene)_Phoenix_frames" directory and does not use the node handle in the cache name
IMPROVED PARTICLE NODES Converted the Particle Group nodes to a new node type instead of being Simulator instances
IMPROVED TOOLS Cache Converter now requires source and destination files and is verbose by default
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Particle Shaders created by enabling Foam or Splash, or by Quick Setup presets, are now named after the simulator with 'Foam/Splash/Mist Shader' appended
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Renamed the Foam and Splash 'Outside Life' option to 'Max Outside Age'
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Renamed 'Sticky Effect' and 'Sticky' to 'Sticky Liquid' and 'Sticky Foam' respectively
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Renamed 'Boundary conditions' to 'Container Walls'
IMPROVED SDK Exposed a new function - getVolRendSamplerFromNode() which takes a node as an argument in order to support Simulator instances
IMPROVED INSTALLER Show a warning when installing Phoenix for V-Ray 3 together with V-Ray Next and vice versa
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Liquid particles got deleted on contact with deforming geometries, Alembic and Point Caches
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Liquid sources emitted in pulses when adaptive grid resizes, since Phoenix FD 3.11
FIXED FLIP SOLVER: Could not emit liquid from particle systems, since Phoenix FD 3.11
FIXED FLIP SOLVER If the Liquid Simulator's cache Output path could not be written to, no error was shown and the simulation continued, since Phoenix FD 3.11
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Surface Tension Droplet Breakup caused liquid drops in zero gravity to take diamond shapes
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Confine Geometries used by Liquid Simulators were not internally set to Solid like Fire/Smoke Simulators do
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Solid geometry without Clear Inside did not create liquid voxels under the Fillup for Ocean level
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Liquid was created in voxels covered by Confine Geometry when Fillup for Ocean was used
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Significant difference in the simulation between Sticky Liquid set to 0.001 and 0.002
FIXED GRID SOLVER Crash when Resimulating with Adaptive Grid with Preallocation and the result grid was over 2.1 billion voxels
FIXED VOLUMETRIC SHADER Missing buckets with moving Simulator in Volumetric Geometry mode and Motion Blur
FIXED GPU VOLUMETRICS Wrong cache file was rendered with V-Ray Next GPU when Resimulation was enabled, Play Speed was not 1.0 and Use Time Bend Controls was On
FIXED GPU VOLUMETRICS Warning about Emit light not supported on V-Ray Next GPU was shown when rendering in Mesh mode
FIXED GPU VOLUMETRICS Volumes didn't render in V-Ray Next GPU in scenes where Particle Shaders referenced missing caches
FIXED GPU VOLUMETRICS Incorrect light intensity with Approximate Scattering using V-Ray Next GPU
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER The Size Multiplier of a Particle Shader animated by Particle Age did not work correctly for particles born on negative frames
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Rare infinite loop when rendering particles in Bubble mode with V-Ray Next
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Point Mode and Fog Mode did not render when Render as Geometry was enabled
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Rendering in Bubbles Mode, then rendering in Fog Mode, and then again rendering in Bubbles Mode still rendered the fog when Render as Geometry was enabled
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Crash with Particle Shader in Geometry Mode and geometry with VRayMtl with V-Ray Edges Tex rounded edges bump since Phoenix FD 3.10
FIXED ISOSURFACE RENDERING Render Cutter in Isosurface mode of a Simulator with VRayMtl with Affect Shadows blocked GI rays for geometry inside the Cutter with V-Ray Next
FIXED RENDER ELEMENTS Buckets in VRayLightSelect render element when rendering the Simulator in Volumetric Geometry mode with Phoenix Light Cache enabled
FIXED RENDER ELEMENTS The Simulator's Shadow, Raw Shadow, GI, and Raw GI render elements didn't render correctly in Volumetric Geometry mode with Phoenix Light Cache enabled
FIXED RENDER ELEMENTS The Simulator's Shadow, Raw Shadow, GI, and Raw GI render elements didn't render correctly with enabled Phoenix Light Cache
FIXED RENDER ELEMENTS Random crash when rendering a Simulator in Volumetric Geometry mode with V-Ray Velocity Render element
FIXED OCEAN MESHER The Simulator surface appeared rougher than the Ocean extension in the distance at a low angle with low Ocean Subdivs and low Horizon Roughness
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Incorrect mesh velocity when rendering a moving Ocean or Cap mode Simulator with Motion Blur
FIXED OCEAN MESHER The Underwater Goggles option did not account for the Off-Screen Margin option
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Artifacts on the grid border when rendering in Ocean Mesh mode with Mesh Smoothing and Use Liquid Particles
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Black artifacts near the horizon in Ocean Mode with Horizon Roughness and the camera was far from the Simulator origin
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Noisy Phoenix Mesh displacement using an Ocean Texture when looking at tall waves from the side since Phoenix FD 3.03
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Missing mesh polygons on the container border when rendering in Ocean Mesh mode with Mesh Smoothness above 0
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Using Mesh Smoothing in Ocean Mesh or Cap Mesh render mode shrunk the mesh
FIXED OCEAN TEXTURE Artifacts when rendering Ocean with high Ocean Subdivs and high Ocean Texture Level of Detail
FIXED GRID TEXTURE Crash if using a Grid Texture sampling a 'Rendering ...' channel that used the same Grid Texture as Based On or Modulate texture
FIXED GRID TEXTURE Crash or a different render when re-rendering the same frame that used a Grid Texture
FIXED GRID TEXTURE Random crash after selecting a new Simulator in a Grid Texture
FIXED GRID TEXTURE Grid Texture did not update during sequence render if it was plugged into an Output map
FIXED GRID TEXTURE Grid Texture did not read the Rendering Color or Opacity channels from a Simulator in Mesh or Isosurface Mode
FIXED PREVIEW Incorrect preview when the Simulator's Pivot Point was Offset
FIXED PREVIEW The range for velocity preview was wrong then there was no velocity channel and auto-range was enabled
FIXED CACHE I/O Caches containing digits after the # format could not be loaded
FIXED CACHE I/O Caches containing a minus/dash sign before the # format could not be loaded
FIXED PARTICLE NODES Crash after deleting a Simulator and one or more of its hidden PG nodes together
FIXED STOKE Phoenix Simulators could not be used as a Velocity Field Source in Stoke MX since Phoenix FD 3.05
FIXED STOKE Crash when simulating with Stoke MX using a Simulator with a Grid Texture in its material as a Velocity Field Source
FIXED PARTICLE FLOW Emitting from Particle Flow systems where some events have no particles produces emission at coordinates 0,0,0
FIXED PRT I/O PRT Export in the interval from frame 0 to frame 0 exported the entire timeline range
FIXED PRT I/O After exporting once, the PRT Export dialogue became non-modal and another one could be opened, which could lead to crashes
FIXED TOOLS Cache Converter required a missing aurloader.dll
FIXED PRESETS Simulation or render presets had a different number of keyframes every time they were saved
FIXED 3DS MAX INTEGRATION Crash while running a simulation if selecting 'New scene'