This page introduces the Simulator object and its rollouts.
The PhoenixFD Simulator object produces realistic fire/smoke/explosion and liquid effects using physical simulation.
For fire, smoke, and explosion simulations, PhoenixFD Simulator uses a grid-based core, and the result is a sequence of cache files containing the frame data (Temperature, Smoke, etc). These cache files are used later in the rendering process to convert the raw simulation data into realistic images.
Liquid simulations use the FLIP solver in Phoenix 3.0. Compared to the previous grid-based solution, FLIP provides the following:
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In addition liquid simulation, the simulator provides built-in helper simulators for foam, WetMap, splash, and mist. In certain cases the splash and mist can be considered as part of the liquid simulation, because liquid, splash and mist can be converted to each other.
The simulator is represented as single object for user's convenience. Internally, it contains two completely separate parts: a simulator component and a rendering component. Parameters that control the simulator component are separated from those associated with the rendering component. As a result, no rollout will contain mixed parameters, and no parameter will affect both the simulation and rendering.
In addition to manual creation of a simulator with the UI paths shown below, a simulator is automatically created when any of the Quick Simulation Setup buttons are used.
Note: In addition to a simulator, a Source Component must also be present in the scene in order for simulation to take place.
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After creating a PhoenixFD Simulator object, the following rollouts can be accessed in the Attribute Editor:
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The Phoenix simulator has the ability to perform a 2D simulation if one of the grid dimensions is set to 1. The main application of this feature is to create very wide fires that would otherwise be difficult with 3D simulation. See the Grid rollout for more information.
Due to many improvements to the Phoenix solver, recreating simulations the same way you did in older versions of Phoenix may not be possible because of changes to the solvers and the UI. Here are some things to be aware of when upgrading from older versions of Phoenix FD.
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