With Phoenix FD 3.12 we have added support for V-Ray Next for Maya introducing rendering on V-Ray GPU, and also have worked on adding some frequently requested features, improving usability and integration in Maya.
V-Ray Next Support and GPU Volumetric Rendering
Phoenix FD 3.12 is the first Phoenix version to support the official V-Ray Next for Maya. With that also comes support for rendering fire and smoke using V-Ray Next GPU and GPU IPR. Rendering Phoenix meshes was possible on the GPU in previous versions as well, and is now 20% faster on average for both CPU and GPU. With V-Ray Next, the V-Ray Distance Texture is also optimized and works several times faster than with V-Ray 3.x, so Phoenix FD setups using it for mapping viscosity or RGB will benefit greatly.
Ocean Mesh with Physical Camera and all V-Ray camera types
The ocean mesh in Phoenix FD 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, Ocean Mesh mode now supports all parameters of the V-Ray 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.
MASH and Particle Instancer scattering of Simulators
Phoenix FD Simulators can now be instanced across the scene using both MASH and Maya's native Particle Instancer and the Viewport Preview can display the instanced Simulators. Such instances need to be rendered in Volumetric Geometry mode.
Complete changelog:
NEW PHOENIX FD Support for V-Ray Next for Maya
NEW GPU VOLUMETRICS Rendering of Phoenix Simulators with V-Ray Next GPU. Support for render elements and displacement is yet to be added
NEW OCEAN MESHER Support for all parameters of the V-Ray 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 MAYA INTEGRATION Instancing Phoenix Simulators using MASH and Particle Instancer
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 Age and 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 $(work_path) macro for simulation cache Output expands to a "$(scene)_Phoenix_frames" directory
IMPROVED TOOLS Cache Converter now requires source and destination files and is verbose by default
IMPROVED INSTALLATION Install the Chaos License Server automatically after Phoenix installation if Local License is selected and the License Server was not installed
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 USER INTERFACE Renamed Particle Group node's 'Create Particle System' to 'Create nParticles From This System'
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Liquid particles got deleted on contact with deforming geometries
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 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 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 Crash with Particle Shader in Geometry Mode and geometry with VRayMtl with V-Ray Edges Map rounded edges bump since Phoenix FD 3.10
FIXED ISOSURFACE RENDERING Render Cutter in Isosurface mode produced wrong normals on cut surfaces
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 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 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 VRSCENES VRScenes exported under Windows could not load caches under Linux
FIXED GRID TEXTURE Crash if using a Grid Texture sampling a 'Rendering ...' channel that uses the same Grid Texture as Based On or Modulate texture
FIXED PARTICLE TEXTURE Error when moving a marker in the Color Remap of the Particle Texture in the Attribute Editor
FIXED PREVIEW The range for velocity preview was wrong then there was no velocity channel and auto-range was enabled
FIXED PREVIEW Changing the Displacement Amount did not update the viewport Mesh Preview
FIXED GPU PREVIEW Light positions were not correct when saving images from the GPU preview
FIXED GPU PREVIEW Saving images from the GPU Preview did not respect the Use Timeline Start/Stop Frame options
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 MAYA INTEGRATION The Simulator cache paths were always saved with absolute paths to scene files even when a Maya Project was set
FIXED MAYA INTEGRATION Simulation progress bars did not work correctly
FIXED MAYA INTEGRATION Edit Script button threw an error even when the provided Script File path was correct
FIXED TOOLS Cache Converter required a missing aurloader.dll