Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile

The final shot we aim at involves not just water, but also Fire and Smoke. A particle flow (PFlow) system is used as a source for the missile smoke trail. The smoke is simulated using Phoenix Fire/Smoke simulator.

For the liquid, we add three Liquid sources to achieve the effect. One is linked to the missile, one to the Geosphere, and the third to the Cone geometry that emits splash particles. The liquid and the particles are simulated with a Phoenix Liquid Simulator. Together all these compose a convincing submarine-launched ballistic missile effect.

This simulation requires Phoenix 4.4 Build and V-Ray 5 Official Release for 3ds Max 2017 at least. If you notice a major difference between the results shown here and the behavior of your setup, please send an email to support@chaosgroup.com.

The Download button below provides you with an archive containing the scene files.

Download Project Files

(Please replace this image with SLBM_final.mp4)

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, check the Grid rollout where the real-world sizes of the Simulator are shown. If the size of the Simulator in the scene cannot be changed, you can trick 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. Setting the units to Meters is a reasonable choice.

Go to Customize → Units Setup and set Display Unit Scale to Metric Meters. Also, set the System Units so that 1 Unit equals 1 Meter.

The final scene contains the following elements:

1. Ship object for creating a sense of scale in the scene;
2. Missile geometry;
3. Three Liquid sources, each using the Missile, GeoSphere and Cone as emitters, respectively;
4. Phoenix Fire / Smoke source for smoke trail;
5. Phoenix Plain Force as a wind force in the scene;
6. Phoenix Fire/Smoke Simulator;
7. Phoenix Liquid Simulator;
8. V-Ray Physical Camera (VRayCam)for rendering;
9. V-Ray Sun & Sky setup for lighting.

A close-up for the final scene contains the following elements:

1. Cone geometry as a liquid source;
2. GeoSphere geometry as another liquid source;
3. Missile object;
4. Particle Flow node: PF Source that is linked to the moving missile object.

Set the Time Configuration → Animation Length to 120 so that the Time Slider goes from 0 to 120.

The shot requires several key features:

• The first item is when the rocket launches from underwater, the smoke trail drifts from left to right because of the wind. The direction of the ocean wave matches the plain force orientation in the scene.
• Secondly, once the missile launches, a large number of splashes comes out of the sea. The smoke trail is bright white with a bluish tint. We can see a reflection of the hot smoke on the ocean surface, even though the rocket is flying out of the camera. Meaning the Fire / Smoke simulator must be tall enough for an out of camera frustum.

Though the smoke and liquid are simulated independently, parts of the splash/mist /foam overlap with the smoke, making the shot visually more convincing.

Here are the general stages of the SLBM shot:

1. The missile launch at frame 5, it gradually loses speed because of gravity.
2. At frame 50, the missile starts to ignite. You can see hot, white smoke coming out of the missile nozzle while it is changing its trajectory.
3. At frame 59, the missile ignition fire reaches the ocean surface, creating lots of water splashes.
4. At frame 65, the missile enters the acceleration stage, rushing to the sky at full speed.

This section contains information about the Particle Flow settings. It is only provided as a starting point for the Phoenix Simulation.

Here is a preview animation of the particle simulation. This particle system is very straightforward, there is only one event in the system. It is linked to the keyframed missile object.

Particles are shown in dark yellow color.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_PF.mp4)

Here is a Particle View of the particle systems. For the Birth operator, the Emit Start is set to 50 because the missile is ignited at frame 50.

The Speed for the particles are set to 120.0 m, with variation set to 20.0m.

The particle age is controlled with the Delete operator, with a Life span set to 1, so the particles won't last long.

Go to Create Panel → Create → Geometry → PhoenixFD → FireSmokeSim.

The exact position of the Phoenix Simulator in the scene is XYZ: [ 0.0, 0.0, 3.25 ]

Open the Grid rollout and set the following values:

Select the Simulator → Output rollout and enable the output of Temperature, Smoke, and Velocity Grid Channel. 

Create a Phoenix Fire/Smoke Source in the scene: Create Panel → Create → Helpers → PhoenixFD → PHXSource. Rename it to PHXSource-Missile-Smoke.

Press the Add button to choose which geometry to emit and select the PF Source entry in the Scene Explorer.

When you pick the PF Source node, the Available Events dialog pops out. Choose both the "PF Source 001→PF Source 001" and "PF Source 001→Event 001".

For the PHXSource-Missile-Smoke:

• Set the Emit Mode to Surface Force and animate its value.
• Animate the value of the Temperature.
• Set the Smoke to 1.0
• Set Motion Vel. to 1.0
• Prt Shape to Sphere, 1 voxel. 

Go to Graph Editors/Track View → Curve Editor and set keys to the curve of PHXSource-Missile-Smoke's Outgoing Velocity. Set keyframes to Outgoing Velocity, so it can change over time.

Each frame and value are shown in the screenshots.

Here is the table for the keyframes of PHXSource-Missile-Smoke's Outgoing Velocity. 

Go to Graph Editors/Track View → Curve Editor and set keys to the curve of PHXSource-Missile-Smoke's Temperature. We set keyframes to Temperature, so it can change over time.

Each frame and value are shown in the screenshots.

Here is the table for the keyframes of PHXSource-Missile-Smoke's Temperature. 

Select the Phoenix Fire / Smoke Simulator → Simulation rollout. Because the smoke animation started at frame 50, set the Start Frame to 49. You don't have to simulate the full length of the animation. Only a sample is needed, so set the Simulation rollout → Stop Frame to 90.

Press the Start button to simulate.

Here is a preview of the simulation up to this step. To improve the fluid simulation, switch the conservation method to PCG Symmetric in the next step.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step01.mp4) 

Select the Phoenix Fire / Smoke Simulator and change the Conservation Method to PCG Symmetric, with a Quality of 80. The PCG Symmetric option is the best method to use for smoke or explosions in general, preserving both detail and symmetry. The high Conservation Quality allows the smoke to swirl better. For in-depth information, check the Conservation documentation.

Here is a preview animation of the simulation up to this step.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step02-PCG.mp4)

Now the smoke swirls better, but it stays hot for too long. Select the Phoenix Fire/Smoke Simulator, go to the Dynamics rollout. Increase the Cooling to 0.3.

With the new dynamics settings, run the simulation again.

Now the hot smoke cooled faster. The short tail of the hot smoke combined with the long streak of cool smoke, makes it more convincing.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step03-Cooling.mp4)

To make the smoke float up faster, select the Fire / Smoke Simulator, go to the Dynamics rollout, set the Smoke Buoyancy to 20.0. With the new Dynamics settings, run the simulation again.

This example shows the scene after adjusting Buoyancy.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step04-Buoyancy.mp4)

For additional realism to the simulation, we use a Phoenix Plain Force to simulate the effect of wind.

Go to Create Panel → the Helpers tab → Phoenix and add a Phoenix Plain Force. It is a simple directional force.

The exact Position of the Plain Force in the scene is XYZ: [23.0, -69.0, 19.0 ]

Rotate it so that it points in the minus X direction and set the Strength to 5.0 m. Set the Drag to 0.1. Enable the Apply Force Behind Icon option.

The exact Rotation of the Plain Force in the scene is XYZ: [-90.0, 0.0, 0.0 ]

Remove Liquid in the Affect list, because in later steps, that will cause it to blow on the ocean surface. The ocean liquid will be controlled purely by displacement.

In order to get a more detailed result we also increase the Grid Resolution by lowering the Cell Size for the final simulation.

Open the Grid rollout and set the following values:

As you can see in this example, the smoke is slowly drifting toward the right.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step05-Wind.mp4)

Let's give the PHXSource_Missile_Smoke some randomness. Set it's Noise to 0.05.

Run the simulation again.

This is what it looks like.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step06-Src-Noise.mp4)

With the Fire / Smoke Simulator selected, go to the Dynamics rollout. Set the Randomize Amount to 0.4. The Randomize options add random fluctuations in the fluid's velocity for each grid voxel. This should reduce the smoke trail's volume, producing interesting disorder.

To simulate the full length of the animation, go to the Simulation rollout → enable the Timeline option for the Stop Frame. Press the Start button to simulate.

Here is a preview animation of the simulation up to this step.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step07-Random.mp4)

The smoke looks thin and dark.

Go to the Fire/Smoke Simulator → Rendering rollout, click on Volumetric Options. Adjust the color gradient and the curve as shown in the image.

Alternatively you can simply load up a Rendering Preset from the SLBM_rendering_preset.tpr file that is provided in the sample scene.

In the Smoke Color roll out, set the Constant Color to pure white (RGB: 255, 255, 255). Increase the Master Multiplier to 2.0.

Here's a render of the current scene.

To further enhance the realism of the smoke trail, select the Phoenix Fire/Smoke Simulator, go to Rendering rollout → Volumetric Options. In the Smoke Opacity rollout, set the Absorption Constant Color to RGB (96, 96, 117).

Now we have a white smoke trail with a subtle bluish tint. The ratio of the hot afterburn to the cold smoke trail looks convincing.

The Fire/Smoke Simulation is completed. Now let's move on to the liquid part of this tutorial. In the Scene Explorer, click on the Eye Icon on the left of PhoenixFDFire node entry, to hide the Phoenix FD Fire / Smoke Simulator.

Go to Create Panel → Create → Geometry → PhoenixFD → PhoenixFDLiquid.

The exact position of the Simulator in the scene is XYZ: [ 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 ].

Open the Grid rollout and set the following values:

Select the PhoenixFDLiquid → Output rollout . Leave everything as default.

Select the PhoenixFDLiquid → Scene Interaction rollout. Press Add and choose PF Source in the Scene Explore.

Prompt the Available Events. Choose both the "PF Source 001→PF Source 001" and "PF Source 001→Event 001". Press OK. Now all PFlow particles are exclude from the liquid simulation.

Here are three Liquid Sources that will be used:

• The Missile is the first geometry used for a liquid source.
• Geosphere will be added as a liquid source to enhance the splashes.
• Cone geometry is added to generate a large number of splashes after the Missile smoke hits the ocean surface.

Create a Phoenix Liquid Source in the scene: Create Panel → Create → Helpers → PhoenixFD → PHXSource. Rename it to LiquidSrc-Missile.

Press the Add button to choose which geometry to emit and add Missile entry to the Scene Explorer.

For the LiquidSrc-Missile:

• Set the Emit Mode to Surface Force and animate the Outgoing Velocity value.
• Enable Emit Liquid.
• Set Motion Vel. to 1.0

Go to Graph Editors/Track View → Curve Editor and set keys to the curve of the Liquid-Missile's Outgoing Velocity. We set keyframes to the Outgoing Velocity, so it can change over time. The frames and values are shown in the screenshots.

Here is the table for the keyframes of Liquid-Missile's Outgoing Velocity. 

Select the PhoenixFDLiquid in the scene→ Dynamics rollout. Set the Initial Fill Up % to 10.0. Enable both Foam and Splash/Mist option. Leave everything at default.

In the Rendering rollout, set the Mode to Cap Mesh. Set the Ocean Level % to 10.0. It's the same value as the Initial Fill Up.

Enable the Foam option. When asked if you'd like a Phoenix Particle Shader generated for the Foam particles, click on Yes, . This will automatically set up the link between the Foam particles group, the Shader, and the Liquid Simulator. Same goes when you enable the Splash/Mist option for the Splash.

Now there are two Particle Shaders in the scene. Rename them to ParticleShader-Foam and ParticleShader-Splash respectively.

Set the Mode of the ParticleShader-Foam to Points. Leave the other settings as default for now.

As for the Mist particle, you have to create a new Particle Shader for it manually.

Go to: Create Panel → PhoenixFD, Click on the PHXFoam button to create a new Particle Shader in the scene. Rename it to ParticleShader-Mist.

With the PhoenixFDLiquid Simulator selected, simulate for one frame. This step allows Phoenix to generate a Foam / Splash / Mist particles list in the scene.

With the ParticleShader-Mist selected, go to the Modifier Panel. Press the Add button to choose the PhoenixFDLiquid entry in the Scene Explorer, then press OK.

Prompt the Available Events window, choose the Particle[Mist]of[PhoenixFDLiquid001]. Press OK.

Set the ParticleShader-Mist's mode to Fog. Disable the Volume Light Cache option.

Now three Particle Shaders for the Foam / Splash / Mist particles are all set.

You can see splashes coming out of the water when the missile is launched. But there are not enough splashes and the distribution of the particle formation is not optimal.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step11.mp4)

To see which particles are which more clearly, let's change the color swatches for the different particle types. Select the PhoenixFDLiquid in the scene→ Preview rollout. Set the Splash, Mist, and Foam to Blue (RGB: 0, 0, 255), Red (RGB: 255, 0, 0), and Green(RGB: 0, 255, 0) color respectively.

Disable the Liquid Preview by unchecking its Show option. So we can see the distribution of the Splash / Mist / Foam particles simply by their color.

Set Scale Color By to No Scaling for all particle types.

Here is a preview of the simulation.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step12-Particle-Color.mp4)

Select the PhoenixFDLiquid in the scene→ Dynamics rollout. In the Foam rollout, increase the Foam Amount to 10.0. Lower the Birth Threshold to 1.0m.

Run the simulation with the new settings.

You can see more Foam particles are generated after the Missile launch. However, the Foam rises too fast and is cropped by the Simulator.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step13-Foam.mp4)

Select the PhoenixFDLiquid in the scene →Foam rollout. Set the Max Outsize Age to 4.0. B2B Interaction to 0. Decrease the Rising Speed to 3.0m. Decrease the Falling Speed to 30.0m.

Run the simulation with the new dynamics settings.

Now we have Foam particles shooting up and they continue flying even outside of the Liquid Simulator's boundaries.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step14-Foam-Dynamics.mp4)

Select the PhoenixFDLiquid in the scene →Splash/Mist rollout. Reduce the Splash to Mist to 0.05. Increase Mist Amount to 300.0. Set the Max Outsize Age to 4.0.

Run the simulation again with the new dynamics settings.

Here is a preview of the simulation.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step15-Mist.mp4)

The shape of the Splash from the Missile and the amount of Splash is not enough. Create another Liquid Source in the scene. Create a Phoenix Liquid Source in the scene: Create Panel → Create → Helpers → PhoenixFD → PHXSource. Rename it to LiquidSrc-Geosphere.

Press Add to choose which geometry to emit. Click on the GeoSphere entry in the Scene Explorer.

For the LiquidSrc-Geosphere:

• Set the Emit Mode to Surface Force and animate the Outgoing Velocity value.
• Enable Emit Liquid.

Go to Graph Editors/Track View → Curve Editor and set keys to the curve of LiquidSrc-Geosphere's Outgoing Velocity.

Set the keyframes to Outgoing Velocity, so it can change gradually. The frames and values are shown in the screenshots.

Set keyframes to Tangents to Stepped.

Run the simulation again.

As you can see, now the Splashes coming out of the sea are stronger.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step16-Geosphere.mp4)

Create a Phoenix Liquid Source in the scene: Create Panel → Create → Helpers → PhoenixFD → PHXSource. Rename it to LiquidSrc-Cone.

Press the Add button to choose which geometry to emit. Click on the Cone entry in the Scene Explorer.

For the LiquidSrc-Cone:

• Set the Emit Mode to Surface Force and animate the Outgoing Velocity value.
• Enable Emit Liquid.
• Enable Particles. Set the Type to Splashes with value of 40.0

Go to Graph Editors/Track View → Curve Editor and set the keys to the curve of LiquidSrc-Cone's Outgoing Velocity.

Set the keyframes to Outgoing Velocity, so it can change over time. The frames and values are shown in the screenshots.

All keyframes are set to Tangents to Stepped.

Run the simulation again.

You can see a large number of Splashes coming out of the ocean when the missile smoke hits the ocean surface.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_Step17-Cone.mp4)

With the PhoenixFDLiquid selected, go to the Rendering rollout and switch the Mode to Ocean Mesh. Set the Off-Screen Margin to 15.0.

To add details to the ocean surface, enable the Displacement option. plugin a PhoenixFDOceanTex in the Map lot.

Click and drag it to the Material Editor (as the Copy option creates a copy of this Map - you want to use the same texture for both sources, instead of being forced to deal with 2 separate PhoenixFDOceanTex). Rename the texture to OceanTex.

Here are the values for the OceanTex parameters:

• Control by Wind Speed to 5.0m
• Level of Detail to 12
• Sharpness to 0.9
• Velocity Coherence to 0.1
• Wave Crest to 0.5

Set Coordinates Z Angle to 90.0, so that the direction of the ocean waves aligns with the direction of the PlainForce in the scene.

Create a V-Ray Material and assign it to the PhoenixFDLiquid Simulator.

Set the Diffuse color to black.

Reflect and Refract colors should be set to white - this will produce a completely transparent material if the Index of Refraction was set to 1 (which is the IOR of clear air).

Set Max depth to 8 for both Reflection and Refraction.

Set the IOR to 1.333 - this is the physically accurate Index of Refraction of water.

Reduce the HGlossines (Highlight Glossiness) to 0.85. This will slightly blur the specular highlights produced by the sources of illumination in your scene.

If you were to hit render now, you'd notice that the water is completely transparent and does not look like an ocean.

Instead, set the Fog color to RGB : [53, 146, 125 ] and set the Depth to 300.0. This should produce the type of shading you'd expect in a large body of water containing all sorts of particulates that interfere with the light rays.

In the Scene Explorer, click on the Eye Icon on the left of PhoenixFDFire node entry, to unhide the Phoenix FD Fire / Smoke Simulator. Now we are ready to render both the Liquid and the Fire / Smoke effects in the scene.

The Mist looks too thin in the shot.

With the ParticleShader-Mist selected, set the Color swatch to Gray (RGB: 155, 159, 148). Increase the Fog Density to 0.4.

Now the Mist appears thicker. However, the Foam appears too grainy. Both Foam and Splash look overexposed.

 With the ParticleShader-Foam selected, set the Color swatch to a Bluish-White color (RGB: 180, 198, 198). Decrease the Point Radius to 0.5.

With the ParticleShader-Splash selected, set the Color swatch to a Bluish-White color (RGB: 180, 198, 198).

The Foam looks thinner now. But you can still see black artifacts on the ocean surface, especially the far side of the ocean.

With the PhoenixFDLiquid selected, go to the Rendering rollout and increase the Ocean Subdivs to 3.0.

As you can see, increasing the Ocean Subdivs alleviate the black artifacts on the ocean surface.

Open the V-Ray Frame Buffer and use the Create Layer icon to add layers for Lens Effects, Exposure, White Balance and Filmic Tonemap.

The final image is rendered using the V-Ray Frame Buffer with the color corrections and post effects set to:

Filmic Tonemap:

• Type - Hable
• Shoulder strength: 0.160;
• Linear strength: 0.280;
• Linear angle: 0.300;
• Toe strength: 0.620;
• White point: 1.500.

White Balance:

• Temperature: 5641.5.

Exposure:

• Exposure: 0.094;
• Highlight Burn: 1.0;
• Contrast: 0.230.

Lens Effects:

• Opacity: 0.690;
• Size: 26.140;
• Intensity:1.080;
• Bloom: 0.400;

Feel free to use other values for those post effects depending on your preferences.

Alternatively, you can simply load up a Rendering Preset from the SLBM_VFB.vfbl file that is provided in the sample scene.

And here is the final rendered result.

(Please replace this image with SLBM_final.mp4)