This page provides general information about the Displacement sub-section of the Rendering rollout of Chaos Phoenix.
Overview
Displacement is a technique intended to add detail to the simulation during the rendering. The idea of the Phoenix displacement is similar to the usual geometry displacement: a texture is sampled, and the corresponding point of the fluid volume or surface is shifted in a direction at a distance determined by the texture. You can plug any V-Ray, Maya or Phoenix texture maps.
You can use the Phoenix Simulator's Mesh Preview option to check how the attached displacement map is affecting the surface when Render Mode is set to Mesh, Ocean Mesh or Cap Mesh.
UI Path: ||Select PhoenixFDSim|| > Attribute Editor > Rendering rollout > Displacement rollout
Parameters
Displacement Amount | rendDispl, rendDisplEnbl – Specifies a displacement strength multiplier.
Texture | rendDisplFine – Specifies the displacement map. Depending on the Type option selected, a monochrome map or a color map could be required. If a colored map is specified when a monochrome map is needed, the strength of the displacement is determined by the total intensity of the color. If a monochrome map is specified when a vector map is needed, the entire displacement will point in a single direction. For more information on texture mapping in Phoenix, please check the Texture mapping, moving textures with fire/smoke/liquid, and TexUVW page. See the Advection Displacement with a Monochrome Map example below.
Vertical Fade Level | rendDisplFade, rendDisplVertFade – How high above the Ocean Level the displacement will stop having effect. This option is available only in Ocean Mesh and Cap Mesh mode and it is needed for ocean simulations where you have liquid flying or splashing high above the ocean surface, so that the ocean displacement will affect only the calm ocean surface, but will not displace the liquid flying high above the ocean, or you would be able to see small pieces of liquid move up and down as they fly due to the ocean waves displacement. Above the Vertical Fade Level there will be no displacement at all, and below it the displacement will be strongest near the Ocean Level and will gradually be reduced moving up from the ocean surface. This parameter is a percentage of the grid height, just as the Ocean Level option.
Fade Above Velocity | rendDisplVelFade, rendDisplVelFadeEnbl – If the fluid velocity (in voxels/sec) in a voxel is higher than this value, there will be no displacement at all. When the velocity is lower than this value, the higher the velocity, the weaker the displacement will be. This allows you to suppress displacement for the fast moving parts of the fluid where the displacement would visibly disturb the motion in an unnatural manner, and thus you can have only the still ocean surface displaced with waves. This option requires the Grid Velocity channel to be exported to the simulation cache files from the Liquid Output rollout.
The Fade Volume feature can be used when the liquid is in contact with a geometry surface such as a shore or a ship and the displacement breaks the contact by moving the liquid mesh away from, or into the geometry.
Use Fade Volume | usefadeobj – When enabled, allows you to specify a geometry object as a fade volume. There will be no displacement inside this object and outside it the displacement will be gradually reduced at a distance specified by the Volume Fadeout Distance parameter.
Set Selected Object as Fade Volume - When a polygon mesh and a Phoenix Simulator are selected, the selected object will be used as the displacement Fade Volume of the Simulator.
Fade Volume field | usefadeobj, fadeobj – There will be no displacement inside this geometry object, and outside it the displacement will be gradually reduced at a distance specified by the Volume Fadeout Distance parameter. This is useful if you have a geometry such as a sea vessel moving in high displaced waves, or a static geometry such as a beach into which the fluid is splashing. In these cases, you can use these geometries as fade volumes and use small Fadeout Distance around them, so the displaced liquid mesh and the objects would match precisely - otherwise the displacement may pull away the liquid from such geometries or force the liquid to penetrate them.
Volume Fadeout Distance | displgeomfade – Specifies the distance in world units around the object where the displacement will fade out.