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Expand – Opens a floating dialog that contains the selected rollout and automatically folds the command panel rollout.

Re-Center – Resets the position of the floating rollout.

? – Opens up the help documents for the Liquid Rendering.

Mode | rendMode – Specifies the method for visualizing the grid content.

Volumetric – Visualizes the content as a standard 3ds Max atmospheric. This method is used mostly for fire and smoke.
Volumetric Geometry – This method requires V-Ray. It produces the same result as the Volumetric option by using procedural geometry made up from multiple transparent layers. Used when rendering fire/smoke for exporting deep images and render elements such as normals, velocity, multi matte, etc. which would not be available in Volumetric mode. For more information on which render elements are supported in Volumetric and Volumetric Geometry mode, see V-Ray Render Elements Support.

Volumetric Heat Haze – This method requires V-Ray. It produces the same result as the Volumetric Geometry option, and also adds a heat haze effect when used with the Heat Haze parameter. Note that you might need to increase the Max depth of a VRayMtl with refraction in case it intersects with the Heat Haze shader.

Invert Cutter | invgizmo – When enabled, rendering will occur only outside of the render cutter. This is not the same as a cutter with inverted geometry because any rays that do not intersect the cutter will be shaded as well. 

Texture - the values of a custom texture will define the mesh surface. You can see how this works in this How-to video.
Liquid - the Liquid channel will define the liquid surface. Liquid is typically in the range 0-1 for Liquid simulations.
Smoke - the Smoke channel will define the liquid surface. Smoke is typically in the range of 0-1 for Fire/Smoke simulations.
Speed - the Speed channel will define the liquid surface. Speed channel output has to be enabled for this to work. Speed is calculated as the length of the velocity vector for each voxel.  
Fuel - the Fuel channel will define the liquid surface. Fuel channel output has to be enabled for this to work. 
Viscosity - the Viscosity channel will define the liquid surface. Viscosity channel output has to be enabled for this to work.

Texture | stex – If the Surface channel is set to Texture, this slot specifies the texture. In Mesh, Ocean Mesh, Cap Mesh and Isosurface render modes, the selected map will completely replace the cache files that have been loaded, if any. For more information on texture mapping in Phoenix, please check the Texture mapping, moving textures with fire/smoke/liquid, and TexUVW page.

Invert Liquid Volume | solidbelow – By default, grid values above 0.5 are assumed to be liquid, and values below 0.5 are assumed empty. When enabled, the convention switches to the opposite such that values above 0.5 are assumed empty, and values below 0.5 are assumed to be liquid.  

Isosurface Level | surflevel - Allows you to specify a threshold value for the generation of the liquid surface. Grid cells below this value will be ignored. By default, the Isosurface Level is set to 0.5 and should only be modified if there is flickering in the generated geometry. Isosurface Level is used only in Isosurface, Mesh, Ocean Mesh and Cap Mesh Modes.

Isosurf. Sampler | sampler – Determines the blending method between adjacent grid voxels. Used to balance between rendering speed and quality. This parameter is only used when Mode is set to Isosurface.

Box – Displays voxels as cubes. There is no blending between neighbor voxels. This is the fastest mode.
Linear – Linear blending occurs between neighbor voxels to smooth out the fluid's look. Sometimes this mode may unveil the grid-like structure of the fluid. Up to 20-30% faster than the Spherical option.
Spherical – Uses special weight-based sampling for the smoothest looking fluid. With increasing resolution, the visual advantage of this method over the Linear method becomes less noticeable.

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Ocean Level % | oceanlevel – Used with the Ocean Mesh and Cap Mesh rendering modes. Specifies the water level as a percentage of the total grid height.

Border Fade % | oceantransitionzone - The width of a zone inside the Simulator Grid where the mesh surface level would smoothly transition into the displaced waves outside the Simulator. The value is a % of the Simulator width. Increase the value if you need a smoother transition. This option can be especially useful for merging tall waves created by a Wave Force inside the Simulator, with tall displaced waves outside the Simulator.

Ocean Subdivs | meshsubdiv – Used with the Ocean Mesh and Cap Mesh rendering modes. When generating the far areas of the surface, this determines how many vertices will be generated for each pixel of the image. Like with V-Ray subdivisions, the square of the parameter value is used. For example, if you increase the subdivisions twice, the vertices count will grow four times. For more information, see the Ocean Subdivs example below.

Horizon Roughness | oceanhorizrough – Controls the roughness of the distant ocean surface near the horizon. Adds more detail to the waves, which is especially helpful when using a highly reflective material for the ocean surface. Increasing this value can potentially produce visible noise when rendering an animation. To counter this effect, increase the Ocean Subdivs parameter.

Off-Screen Margin (%) | oceanextramargin – The ocean is generated only in the camera view, which can lead to problems when using camera motion blur, using reflections, using refractions with Underwater Goggles enabled, or when the ocean casts shadows on objects underwater. This option allows you to extend the ocean further from the borders of the camera view in order to solve such issues. The value is a percentage of the image size.

Pure Ocean | pureocean – Creates a flat ocean surface up to the Ocean Level height. It does not need loaded caches and if there are any, it ignores their content, so no simulation details will show. Thus changing frames and generating the ocean surface is very quick. This allows you to preview the behavior of the Phoenix FD Ocean Texture when Displacement is enabled or if you want to set up your texture for the Wave force. The option is available for both preview and rendering in Ocean Mesh or Cap Mesh modes. During preview, it requires the Show Mesh option to be enabled in the Preview rollout.

Underwater Goggles | uwglasses – This option is designed to be used when the camera is placed under the water in Ocean Mesh or Cap Mesh mode. When enabled, a surface gets automatically added in front of the camera, using the same material that is assigned to the Simulator, and this way mimics the effect of real life underwater goggles. This way the ocean volume receives the Fog color from the material assigned to the Simulator, and the field of view shrinks when the index of refraction of the material is above 1.  For more information, see the Underwater Goggles example below.

oceanpriority – Script parameter with a default value of 0. This parameter can be used for controlling which is the primary ocean container when several ones are merged together. The Simulator with the highest priority will provide the material and the rendering settings (the Ocean Level, the Ocean Subdivs, etc.) for the merged ocean. The actual combined mesh is not affected by the ocean priority.

oceanforcerenddetail – Script parameter that allows to build the viewport Ocean with the rendering detail, otherwise a simplified version will be used for the viewport preview.

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Notice how the field of view shrinks when the option is enabled, due to using Refraction IOR = 1.33 in the Simulator's VRayMtl.

Smoothness | smoothmesh – Specifies the number of smoothing passes. The higher the value, the smoother the result, but the mesh will require more time to calculate. Used when Mode is set to Mesh, Ocean Mesh, or Cap Mesh to reduce the roughness of the mesh. 

Smooth Normals | smooth_normals – Smooths the normals of the mesh in order to get an even smoother looking result, even if the mesh is with low resolution. However when the Ocean displacement is used to add fine details the smoothing of normals should not diminish that and can be turned off.

Always – The mesh normals will be smoothed always.

When displacement is off – The mesh normals will be smoothed only when the Ocean displacement is off.

Never – The mesh normals will not be smoothed.

Use Liquid Particles | useprt – Enables particle-based smoothing of the mesh. It requires Liquid particles to be simulated and exported to the cache files. This method overcomes the limitations of the basic smoothing without particles, which can flicker in animation and cause small formations in the mesh to shrink.

Particle Size | prtsz – Used to make the liquid thicker or thinner. Works only when Use Liquid Particles is enabled. This parameter specifies the distance from the mesh surface to the particle centers, in voxels.

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Multiplier | mbmult – Specifies a multiplier that affects the strength of the motion blur. This value can be a negative number. 

Prevent Self Intersection | mbself – In all Mesh modes, some motion blurred vertices might penetrate the opposite side of the geometry. When enabled, this option prevents such situations. The self-intersection analysis is expensive, so enable this parameter only when an intersection is obvious.

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