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Overview
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The Input rollout The Input rollout determines the path of the input cache files for rendering and preview previewing, as well as the provides controls for playback effects.
Note that some playback settings require a fractional input frame, in which case, the frame is blended between the previous and the next one.
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To set up rendering and simulation cache paths manually, see Chaning see Changing the Default Phoenix Paths in in the Tips and Tricks page. |
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UI Path: ||Select PhoenixFDSim|| > Attribute Editor > Input rollout |
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Parameters
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Cached Frames – Shows information about the cached frame range.
Preview and Render Path | inPath, inPathResolved – Gives the directory and the name template for the input files – This is the path to the cache sequence to shown in the preview and rendered. The default is is $(same_as_output). Use the button to select the path , meaning the preview and render would show the caches created by the simulation, reading them from the path specified in the Output rollout. Use the button to select the path or type it manually. Phoenix has some keywords that can be used for more flexibility:Anchor CachePath CachePath
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$(same_as_output) – Uses the output path as input. The resimulation output path will get used if the Resimulate option is enabled in the Resimulation rollout. $(same_as_resimoutput) – Uses the resimulation output path as input. $(work_path) – $(data_dir)/$(scene)_Phoenix_frames/$(nodename)_####.aur If you are transferring your scene and assets between Windows and Linux, prefixing your path with the $(workspace) or $env(<variable_name>) macros can make it possible to use the same scene without any manual modifications to the cache path. Pound signs can be used to specify the cache frame number with at least as many digits as the pound signs. If the number of frame digits is less than the number of pound signs, the number is padded with zeroes to the left. For example:
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The default rendering settings are tuned to Phoenix simulations, and they might not work well for imported 3rd party cache files.
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You can suppress showing of the dialogues offering presets using the inDontOfferPresets attribute of the Simulator. Setting inDontOfferPresets to 1, as shown in the image below, will disable the presets pop-up window displayed when a VDB or Field3D cache files are loaded.
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Clicking the "..." button will open a menu with the following options:
Browse – Opens a dialog for choosing one of several cache file types. Phoenix can import *.f3d, *.vdb and *.prt files from other fluid simulator software products. See How to import and render simulations from FumeFX, Houdini and Maya for more information. Supported file formats are:
Reset to Default - Resets the Preview and Render Path to the default value of $(same_as_output). Help - Opens the Help page for the Input rollout of the Phoenix Simulator. |
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This section contains playback options you can use for retiming a simulation after it has already finished. Using these, you can speed up, slow down or animate the motion of the simulated sequence. When retiming an existing simulation from this section without re-simulating, additional RAM might be used, and loading a new timeline frame may take longer when the frame must be obtained by creating a new one between two adjacent cache files. We will refer to the process of creating an intermediate frame from two caches as as Blending. Some of the settings in this section might require specific grid or particle channels to be saved to the cache files during simulation from the Output rollout.
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In order to blend FLIP particles (e.g. Foam, Splash, etc.), enable the export of the Particle ID channel from the Output rollout of the Simulator. To blend Drag particles, enable the export of the Particle ID channel from the Particles section of the Phoenix Source used to add them into the simulation. |
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Playback Mode | inMode – Chooses between different options for animation control:
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Direct Cache Index | inIndex – Used in Cache Index mode and specifies the cache file index for the current timeline frame. This can be animated in order to achieve more interesting time-bend effects.
Cache Origin | inReadOffset – An offset specifying which cache file from the sequence will be placed on the timeline at frame Timeline Origin.
Timeline Origin | inPlayAt – An offset specifying which timeline frame the starting cache will be placed on.
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Play Length | inMaxLength – The duration in timeline frames. In Linear mode, when this parameter is larger than 0, the sequence length is limited to its value. In Loop mode, this parameter shows the loop length. Loop Overlap
Auto Origin | autoOrigin – When enabled, if there are any loaded cache files, automatically set the Timeline Origin and the Cache Origin to the first frame of the cache sequence, so changing the Play Speed will stretch the sequence relative to this frame.
Timeline Origin | inPlayAt – An offset specifying which timeline frame the starting cache will be placed on. You can think of it this way: "Put cache #(Cache Origin) on timeline frame #(Timeline Origin)".
Cache Origin | inReadOffset – An offset specifying which cache file from the sequence will be placed on the timeline at frame Timeline Origin. You can think of it this way: "Put cache #(Cache Origin) on timeline frame #(Timeline Origin)".
Loop Overlap | inLoop – In Loop mode, specifies the number of timeline frames after the loop's end that will be blended with the loop's beginning to make for a smooth transition. Keep in mind that the end transition frames are not in front of the sequence end but after it. For example, if the loop starts at frame 35 and has a Play Length of 20 and a Loop Overlap of 5, the transition frames will start at frame 55 and will end at frame 59, which means the simulation must be at least 59 frames long. It is recommended that the Loop Overlap value be longer than the average "lifetime" of the simulation elements while involved in highly visible motion. For example, for a waterfall, the Loop Overlap value should be at least the average time it takes for a inLoop – In Loop mode, specifies the number of timeline frames after the loop's end that will be blended with the loop's beginning to make for a smooth transition. Keep in mind that the end transition frames are not in front of the sequence end but after it. For example, if the loop starts at frame 35 and has a Play Length of 20 and a Loop Overlap of 5, the transition frames will start at frame 55 and will end at frame 59, which means the simulation must be at least 59 frames long. It is recommended that the Loop Overlap value be longer than the average "lifetime" of the simulation elements while involved in highly visible motion. For example, for a waterfall, the Loop Overlap value should be at least the average time it takes for a water droplet to fall the full distance before being absorbed into the water at the bottom. For a campfire, it should be at least the average time for a particle to rise up and disappear/die. Correct setting of this value is especially important for simulations that contain particles. When looping particles, make sure to export the particle ID channel in the Output panel.
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Interpolation – Simple linear interpolation suitable for slow simulations. This is the fastest method but it does not capture movement well and may produce flickering.
Velocity – Velocity-based interpolation. Produces better results, but works more slowly. Captures well the movement of the fronts of the plumes, but does not work well for smoke moving backwards, and also may produce flickering. It requires an exported grid velocity channel from the Output rollout.
Precise Tracing - Improved Velocity based interpolation for Fire and Smoke simulations. Captures plume movement very well and can handle very low Play SpeedsSpeeds. Requires an exported grid Velocity channel, as well as Advection Origin channel from the Output rollout.
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Flip Up Axis | inFlipYZ – When enabled, flips the Y and Z axis of the cache's transformation. This is useful when the cache was created with a different up axis (for example, in 3ds Max).
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Example: Timeline Origin
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Example: Cache Origin and Play Speed
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Example: Looping a Simulation
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Example: Play Speed
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Grid Smoothing is performed after the cache file is loaded for the current frame, so for large grids it could cause significant lag after changing frames. To prevent this from occurring, switch it off during the design process and re-enable it again before rendering. |
The controls in this section allow you to smooth the grid channels loaded from cache files for preview and rendering. You can use this to prevent grid artifacts on meshed grid channels such as the Liquid surface, Smoke or Temperature surface, to remove unwanted noise in these channels, or to get smooth motion blur by smoothing the Velocity grid channel.
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Threshold | inSmoothTemp[0], inSmoothSmoke[0], inSmoothUVW[0], inSmoothFuel[0], inSmoothVel[0] – If this value is 0, the entire grid will be smoothed evenly. The higher the threshold is raised, the less voxels will be affected and only the sharpest gradients will be smoothed. The highest value you could use here depends on the range of the values of the smoothed channel - for Smoke and Liquid it's usually in the [0,1] range, while for Velocity it could go as high as several hundred and for Temperature it could be over a thousand. If you set this value too high, no voxels will be smoothed at all.
Similarity | inSmoothTemp[1], inSmoothSmoke[1], inSmoothUVW[1], inSmoothFuel[1], inSmoothVel[1] – Increasing this value will allow you to smooth only the finer small-scale noise without changing the areas of the fluid which are already smooth. Note that just like the Threshold option, this value also depends on the range of the selected channel. If you want to remove only some sharp fine disturbances from the simulation without blurring other areas, set the Threshold to 0, increase the Similarity to the highest values the selected channel can take and then start reducing it until the small-scale noise is removed, while the larger fluid shapes are retained. This option won't take effect if the Threshold parameter is raised to the maximum.
Random Variation | inSmoothTemp[2], inSmoothSmoke[2], inSmoothUVW[2], inSmoothFuel[2], inSmoothVel[2] – This parameter introduces noise of uniform scale in the channel before smoothing is applied. This can be useful if you want to give the fluid a more homogeneous pattern and this way it can also help hide grid artifacts. Note that just like the Threshold option, this value also depends on the range of the selected channel. You can use this option to only add noise to the channel without smoothing it - in order to do this, set both Threshold and Similarity to the highest values of the selected channel and this way they will not take effect.
Enable | inSmoothTempEnbl, inSmoothSmokeEnbl, inSmoothUVWEnbl, inSmoothFuelEnbl, inSmoothVelEnbl – This checkbox enables frame smoothing for the specified input channel.
3rd Party Channels Mapping
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Different applications use different channels and might have different names for them. When loading f3d/vdb files, Phoenix tries to automatically make the conversion to the supported channels. If a channel is not mapped by default, a channel can be manually set from the drop-down menu.
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