In this tutorial we demonstrate how to work with thinkingParticles in tandem with Phoenix. We generate bombs using thinkingParticles. When missiles hit the ground, bounced debris are procedurally created.
thinkingParticles contain velocity information and Phoenix can use them as sources for fire/smoke in order to produce realistic artillery explosions.
Also, we take advantage of the Time Base - Particle Age, a powerful feature of Fire/Smoke source. It allows us to animate the emission of fluid based on the age of each individual particle.
This simulation requires thinkingParticles 6, Phoenix 4.10 Official Release and V-Ray Next Official Release for 3ds Max 2015 at least. If you notice a major difference between the results shown here and the behavior of your setup, please reach us using the Support Form.
The Download button below provides you with an archive containing the start and end scenes.
Scale is crucial for the behavior of any simulation. The real-world size of the Simulator in units is important for the simulation dynamics.
Large scale simulations appear to move slower, while mid-to-small scale simulations have lots of vigorous movements.
When you create your Simulator, you must check the Grid rollout where the real-world extents of the Simulator are shown. If the size of the Simulator in the scene cannot be changed, you can cheat the solver into working as if the scale is larger or smaller by changing the Scene Scale option in the Grid rollout.
The Phoenix solver is not affected by how you choose to view the Display Unit Scale - it is just a matter of convenience.
As the focus of this tutorial is a large-scale simulation, setting the units to Meters seems like a reasonable choice.
Go to Customize → Units Setup and set Display Unit Scale to Metric Meters. Also, set the System Units such that 1 Unit equals 1 Meter.
