With the Chaos Phoenix 5.01 hotfix we added support for V-Ray 6.
Using V-Ray 6, now Phoenix's Particle Shader will render in Points mode with V-Ray GPU.
Also, now with V-Ray 6 CPU Phoenix can render the Normals, Velocity, Cryptomatte and Multimatte render elements in the default Volumetric mode, without needing to switch to the slower Volumetric Geometry mode of the Simulator or the Render as Geometry mode of the Particle Shader.
With any version of V-Ray CPU, Phoenix can now render volumetrics using a custom Phase Function, allowing you to control of the Smoke does forward scattering of light (allowing you to render realistic clouds) or backscattering (allowing you to render more realistic dust and smoke).
Now all of the Simulator options are available in the Phoenix Standalone Simulator - we added Splash, Mist and Foam, as well as Resimulation.
Sources can now emit Mist particles into the simulation directly.
As always, we sped up different parts of the simulation and rendering and fixed a few bugs, most notably in the FLIP liquid solver and Active Bodies, as well as in the Particle Shader and Standalone Previewer.
NEW VOLUME SHADER Phase Function control in Ray-Traced Scattering mode for the Smoke Color allowing to render realistic clouds with V-Ray CPU
NEW STANDALONE SIMULATOR Foam, Splash/Mist and Resimulation options of the Simulator are now supported, except for Time-Bend Resimulation
NEW STANDALONE SIMULATOR Restore option for the Standalone Simulator (-restoreFromFrame=nnn)
NEW FLIP LIQUID SOLVER Emit Mist particles from Liquid Sources
NEW RENDER ELEMENTS Velocity, Normals, Cryptomatte and Multimatte render elements in Volumetric mode with V-Ray 6 CPU for the Simulator, Voxel Shader and Particle Shader
NEW PARTICLE SHADER Point mode rendering on V-Ray 6 GPU
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Added a "Get Support..." item in the Phoenix FD menu, leading to chaos.com's support request form
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Hid the Limited By and Limited To options from Maya's Grid rollout and replaced them with a Max Memory % option like in 3ds Max
REMOVED INSTALLATION Stopped the Phoenix zip installations in the nightlies and release builds - the same can now be achieved using the installer's unpackInstall argument
FIXED FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER Buffered conservation produced different results on each run
FIXED FLIP LIQUID SOLVER Restoring a simulation with Initial Fill Up when the first frame was a backup frame doubled the liquid particles
FIXED FLIP LIQUID SOLVER If a Birth Volume geometry exited the Simulator, the Birth Volume stopped working and particles started getting created
FIXED FLIP LIQUID SOLVER Splash and Mist born from Sources didn't turn into liquid when they hit a solid or liquid surface when Affect Liquid was nonzero
FIXED FLIP LIQUID SOLVER Splash splitting to Mist with nonzero Affect Liquid could create liquid particles in mid air, since Phoenix 5.00
FIXED FLIP LIQUID SOLVER Initial Velocity Multiplier was applied only to some, but not all newly created Splash particles when Affect Liquid was nonzero
FIXED FLIP LIQUID SOLVER The Liquid Simulator's Adaptive Grid expanded incorrectly in Jammed directions if the opposite wall was open
FIXED FLIP LIQUID SOLVER Pausing a simulation with Active Bodies or animated bodies could cause a hang
FIXED ACTIVE BODIES Could not change the Center of Mass of Active Bodies, since Phoenix 5.00
FIXED ACTIVE BODIES The Active Body Clone began to move sideways when Restoring the simulation, since Phoenix 5.00
FIXED VOLUME SHADER Render pre-processing of volumetrics used just the first NUMA node on NUMA machines
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Particle Shader's Under/Above Water Subgroups ignored the Liquid Simulator's Isosurface Level and always used 0.99
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Particles in Splashes mode did not get hidden if they were underwater when the liquid was displaced in case Count Multiplier was above 1
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Collecting and Count Multiplying particles used just the first NUMA node on NUMA machines
FIXED PREVIEW Voxel, Particle, Mesh and GPU Preview preparation used just the first NUMA node on NUMA machines
FIXED GPU PREVIEW Rare GPU Preview crash, since Phoenix 5.00
FIXED GPU PREVIEW The caches were appearing sliced or were not visible in the viewport when the GPU Preview and Smoke Opacity Modulate options were enabled
FIXED CACHE I/O AUR and VDB export and import used just the first NUMA node on NUMA machines
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW The frame of 'Draw Just A Slice' disappeared when it reached the limits of the Simulator
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW Crash when Detail Reduction was too low and the volume information could not fit in memory. Now an error is displayed
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW The 'Step Size As % Of Cell Size' control in the Standalone Preview was 10 times wider than it should be, since Phoenix 5.00
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW Volumes were displayed incorrectly when the GPU Preview and the Orthographic Projection were enabled
FIXED PRESETS The Speedboat quick setup toolbar preset had the Pure Ocean checkbox enabled and thus hid the waves created by the boat
FIXED PRESETS The Speedboat quick setup toolbar preset created wrong Center of Mass when used on rotated objects