Chaos Group has released a new Beta for Phoenix FD4, codenamed 3.99. New features include the return of Active Bodies, allowing users to float geometry over liquid and manipulate it with flowing water. While collisions between bodies aren’t yet available, and fire/smoke simulators can’t yet interact with active bodies, these features are reportedly in development.
Voxel and Particle Tuners have received several new nodes, offering advanced control over simulations. Users can now check each voxel or particle against custom conditions, enabling them to modify its channels or remove it entirely.
Additionally, a new channel called TexUVW transports texture coordinates with the fluid simulation. This allows users to leverage it during rendering to create displacement flow with the fluid in Mesh or Volumetric modes. It’s also possible to modulate or replace the color and opacity of volumetrics with flowing texture maps further enhancing detail.
In 3DS Max, three Phoenix operators have been introduced to thinkingParticles, similar to the existing Particle Flow operators. These include a Birth operator to create Thinking Particles when Phoenix fluid meets specific conditions, a Force operator to propel Thinking Particles along with the Phoenix fluid, and a Sample operator that reads properties of the Phoenix fluids for use in TP graph expressions.
Finally, a new Standalone Cache Preview tool loads AUR, VDB, and F3D cache files, providing a voxel preview that is significantly faster than the 3DS Max and Maya viewports. An experimental new Streamline Velocity preview is also available to help visualize fluid movement more effectively.
For additional information, refer to the documentation pages.
