FumeFX

FumeFX
Gaseous fluid dynamics simulator for 3ds Max.

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FumeFX is a powerful fluid dynamics engine designed for the simulation and rendering of realistic fire, smoke, explosion, and other gaseous phenomena. It’s versatility, robustness, and intuitive workflow make it a perfect solution for even the most demanding tasks in the computer graphics industry.

This groundbreaking plug-in has already been production proven in titles such as Superman Returns and The Host (Gwoemul).

Key Features

Production proven results demonstrate this technology’s ability to achieve realistic smoke and fire effects for cutting-edge industry applications.
- FumeFX supplements the user’s artistic vision with the power of real-world physics for the ultimate in both style and realism.
- A multitude of parameters and FumeFX helpers give users maximum control of the fluid’s behavior and appearance.
- Easy to use, basic effects can be created with just a few clicks.
- Options include the use of powerful AFC and Gradient controls, which are unified through all Sitni Sati products.
- Plug-in design incorporates extensive support for Particle Flow and Thinking Particles.
- Dynamic simulations allow for bi-directional influence between FumeFX and particle systems.
- Advanced scripting is possible with almost every aspect of FumeFX, including access to all simulation data.
- FumeFX is capable of dynamic interaction with other scene objects.

Simulation

- Start simulations from scratch or by using other simulation results as starting point.
- Stop, pause and continue simulations at any point.
- Simulation is multithreaded – user can select how many CPU’s to dedicate to simulation.
- Simulations beyond available memory can be swapped to disk.
- User can watch the simulation progress in the interactive Preview Window.
- Draft simulations can be created in mere minutes for fast previewing.
- User has control of which data will be written to output files for rendering and other uses.

Rendering

- The Preview Window gives users almost instant feedback on render settings.
- Fast self-shadowing is produced through an Illumination Map.
- A highly efficient Multiple Scattering model enhances light dispersion throughout fluid.
- Fluid Mapping integrates procedural map details with fluid motion.
- Plug-in design includes advanced Global Illumination casting support for finalRender.
- The dynamic FusionWorks atmospheric renderer provides:
- Proper blending of all Sitni Sati atmospherics (coming soon!)
- Balanced mixing of FumeFX and compatible atmospherics with 3ds Max Fog
- Ability to apply Image Motion Blur
- Option to affect Effect Channel
- Z depth

Workflow

Simulation

Sources

FumeFX Sources are the essential element of any simulation. They are the source of temperature, fuel, smoke and motion for the simulation.

- Simple Source consists of procedurally created emitter, in a shape of box, sphere or cylinder. It can add fire, smoke, temperature, and velocity to the grid or diminish existing. With Simple Source, it is easy to create wind, candles, torches, blasts and smoke. For a customized emission of each channel, any 3D procedural texture map can be used as its mask.

- Object source can create fire or smoke on any geometric object, which it can treat as solid or hollow. Like simple Source, every emitted channel has a mask. Any 2D or 3D texture map can be used, with ability to use any RGB component of the map. Simple example is fire spreading over the surface, controlled by noise map with animated thresholds.

- Particle Source uses any 3ds Max particle system as a source, including full support for Particle Flow and Thinking Particles. Each particle acts like a simple source with a given radius. All parameters (radius, channel emissions) have variation per particle. AFC’s, (Animation Flow Curves) well know to the AfterBurn users, give control over parameters in dependence of particle age.

- As an addition, sources can affect values of any channel by using a special controller that reads voxel data. In practice, this means that source can emit fuel when temperature (or any other existing data) inside a voxel is above or below a user-defined threshold.

- By using controllers, user can also write an expression that will evaluate temperature inside the voxel and based on its value, decide how much of the fuel will be added to the voxel (temperature and fuel were used for an example only).

Particle Operators

Fluid Mapping

Adding detail to a fluid usually requires increasing the number of voxels and re-calculating the entire simulation. This increase is limited by computer memory and processor time, which both rapidly increase as simulation is run at finer resolutions. To avoid these constraints, FumeFX implements Fluid Mapping to add visual detail to smoke. It is essentially world texture coordinates being moved with the fluid over time. It is a channel, just like smoke and fire, and as such FumeFX must create it during simulation in order to use it at rendering time.

- Fluid Mapping enables the user to overlay 3D procedural textures on the flow. This dramatically increases detail, which correctly follows fire or smoke movement, with minimal increase in simulation time.

- Also, procedural texture parameters can be tweaked without the need to recalculate simulation.

Shading

FumeFX comes with two built-in shaders:

- The Standard Shader has controls for rendering Fire, Smoke and Fuel channels. It blends all of them automatically, even if smoke and fire exist inside the same voxel.

- The Channel Shader has the ability to render any data channel. This means that user can render smoke, fire, temperature, velocity, or any other channel that might become available in the future, using customizable color gradients.

- For additional detail, FumeFX shaders can use procedural textures, such as Noise. Texture can be applied using two coordinate systems. With Fluid Mapping, FumeFX creates the impression of a synchronous flow of texture detail with the fluid. With World Space, texture remains motionless, like the mask textures common to 3ds Max atmospherics.

- Shaders are equipped with AFC and Gradient controls. With their use, color and opacity can be precisely defined with dependence on smoke, fire, or any other channel’s value.

- FumeFX shaders fully support finalRender. User can control Global Illumination’s strength multiplier to control the contribution of illumination that comes from FumeFX.

Illumination

For realistic rendering, it is important to compute the interaction between light and any gaseous medium. Two most important aspects of these interactions are: light absorption/emission, and scattering.

- To speed up the rendering of self-shadows, FumeFX uses an Illumination Map that pre-computes lighting information without significant loss of detail. This Illumination Map can be stored on a hard disk and be reused during rendering.

- Additional adjustments of that Illumination Map’s strength can be made without re-computing.

Smoke is a medium through which light repeatedly scatters from small particles until it reaches camera. This effect is known as multiple scattering. In computer graphics, simulating a multiple scattering through a participating medium is a complicated and time-consuming process.

- FumeFX incorporates a simplified and time efficient multiple scattering model that makes it possible to render realistic images.

Scripting

The FumeFX interface is simple, intuitive and powerful, but with the power and simplicity MAXScripting users can truly take advantage of the versatility of this plug-in. For example:

- Any advanced user can read and modify values in each individual voxel, which enables potential control of the entire simulation. Limited only by the user’s programming skills, any kind of procedural initialization of the grid or definition of any force becomes possible. For instance, smoke could be pushed away from active light sources based on their strength and attenuation.

- As a workflow aid, MAXScript enables the user to run batched simulations and renderings with different parameters.

FusionWorks

Sample AVIs (Click to view)