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Official release

Date – 15 April, 2021

Download – Build 4.40.00

 


 

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Active Bodies collision

Complete control over collisions between Active Bodies using the Bullet solver. Easily create effects such as colliding ice cubes in liquid, floating ocean debris or objects washed away in floods.

Watch video

 


 

Color Absorption

A whole new level of volume rendering effects using Colored Absorption. Achieve more control over smoke shading—change the light’s color as it travels through smoke.

Watch video

 


 

Massive Wave Force

Build highly realistic ocean simulations. Create real-world ocean waves, using the Massive Wave Force feature.

Watch video

 


 

Extended motion blur support on V-Ray GPU

Leverage GPU power to add motion blur to splashes and bubble mode in the Particle Shader.

 


 

Faster rendering and simulations

Take advantage of various speed gains on simulation, rendering and previews.

Property Lister window

Quickly access and change the Phoenix properties of each object in your scene—all in one place.

Autodesk 3ds Max 2022 support

Phoenix is now compatible with the latest Autodesk releases.

 


 

With Phoenix FD 4.40 we added support for 3ds Max 2022 (note that the GPU preview and velocity streamline preview are disabled temporarily due to changes in the 3ds Max viewports).

We implemented mutual collisions between Active Bodies so now you can create complex rigid body dynamics with Phoenix. In order to aid scenes with many interacting objects, we added a new Property Lister window, allowing you quick access to the per-node properties of the scene nodes.

Simulations of large scale stormy oceans or tunnel waves are now possible with the new Massive Wave Force.

A new colored absorption option allows for more interesting volume rendering effects, and can also be mapped via a texture. We added support for motion blur of Bubbles and Splashes in V-Ray GPU (requires a latest V-Ray 5).

The Phoenix standalone previewer can now be fully controlled via the command line, allowing you to change options and save image sequences of cache files in all different preview modes.

In this version of Phoenix, we multithreaded all remaining parts of the simulation, and also sped up the simulation, previews and rendering significantly.

We improved our toolbar presets, added more options to the cache converter tool, and as always, fixed many issues.

 


 

Status
colourGreen
titleNew
 
Status
titlephoenix
 Support for 3ds Max 2022 (GPU preview and velocity streamline preview are temporarily disabled)

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colourGreen
titleNew
 
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titleactive bodies
 Mutual interaction between Active Bodies, using the Bullet Solver option

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colourGreen
titleNew
 
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titlesimulation general
 Phoenix Property Lister window for quickly editing many obstacles or Active Bodies in the scenе

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colourGreen
titleNew
 
Status
titlevolume shader
 Absorption color for volume rendering which can also be mapped by a texture

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colourGreen
titleNew
 
Status
titlevolume shader
 Render the Fully Visible Fire Opacity Mode together with the Use Probabilistic Shading option

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colourGreen
titleNew
 
Status
titleparticle shader
 Render the Particle Shader in Bubbles/Splashes mode with motion blur on V-Ray GPU, requires V-Ray 5, update 1.2

Status
colourGreen
titleNew
 
Status
titlestandalone preview
 Command line interface allowing to script image saving using different preview modes and options

Status
colourGreen
titleNew
 
Status
titlewave force
 Massive Wave Force allowing to exactly replicate the Ocean waves, to affect any Phoenix channel, even without Fillup for Ocean, and use any Level Of Detail of the Ocean Texture

Status
colourGreen
titleNew
 
Status
title3ds max integration
 Option to start a render after each simulation frame is completed - 'Render On Each Sim Frame' in the Simulation rollout, to go together with Cacheless Simulation

 

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleSimulation General
 Sped up low res simulations (below 10 million voxels) with up to 15%

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleSimulation General
 Enabled Grid Velocity for all Simulators and presets by default

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Emit pressure from Liquid Sources In Volume Inject mode without emitting liquid

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Allow Birth Volumes to interact with the simulation even if they are hidden

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Sped up FLIP simulations with up to 25%

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleActive Bodies
 A new 'Collision Margin' parameter which you can lower in order to keep groups of bodies in contact

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleSources
 Affect Motion Velocity of Sources emitting from geometries and particles, using Discharge Modifiers

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleSources
 Sped up texture mapped emitters by improving their multithreading

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleParticle Shader
 Sped up frame begin and frame end of the Particle Shader in Bubbles/Splashes/Cellular and Points Mode, especially with huge numbers of particles

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleMesher
 Mesh surface from the Viscosity channel StatuscolourYellowtitleImproveD 
Status
titleOcean Mesher
 Hidden "oceanpriority" option for controlling which is the primary ocean contained when several ones are merged

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleCache I/O
 Sped up particle compression when writing AUR files. Older Phoenix versions will not be able to read the new AUR files

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleCache I/O
 Read VDB particle channels named 'point_velocity', 'point_size' and 'point_age'

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titlePresets
 Improved the Gasoline Explosion toolbar Quick Setup preset

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titlePresets
 Improved the Burning Fuel toolbar Quick Setup preset

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titlePreview
 Sped up viewport performance of many Simulator copies

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleStandalone Preview
 Options for specifying the resolution of the saved images

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleStandalone Preview
 Option for enabling orthographic projection

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleCache Converter
 -exportchannels option allowing you to write only specific channels to the output cache files

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleCache Converter
 -removegridch and -removeprt options allowing stripping of grid and particle channels from the cache files

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleScripting
 Allowed adding, removing and getting the Phoenix Node Properties on an object via MaxScript - new phxAddNodeProps, phxRemoveNodeProps, and phxGetNodeProps functions

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleScripting
 Equalized all MaxScript names for the Phoenix Node Properties options with the names in Maya

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleScripting
 New IPhoenix interface, with getVersionString(), getTargetString() and getCopyrightsString() methods

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleToolbar
 Delete caches from the Phoenix toolbar without a selected Simulator

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
title3ds Max Integration
 Allowed animating all float and world unit Simulator options

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
title3ds Max Integration
 Allowed animating of the Solid, Wetting and Voxel Mode Override node properties

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colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleUser Interface
 Added a new 'Credits and Copyrights' window, accessible via the 'Phoenix FD' menu

Status
colourYellow
titleImproveD
 
Status
titleUser Interface
 Moved the 'Preferences' and 'About' dialog from the Simulator to the 'Phoenix FD' menu

 

Status
colourBlue
titleremoved
 
Status
titlephoenix
 Dropped support for 3ds Max 2016 and 2017

Status
colourBlue
titleremoved
 
Status
titleUser Interface
 Hidden the Particle TexUVW export option from the Output rollout

 

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Emitting Foam/Splash from rigged geometry via a Source in Surface Force mode with Motion Velocity did not set the initial velocity of the particles

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 The Foam Birth Volume did not prevent foam to be born by the Splash's Foam On Hit

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Lower Sticky Liquid multiplier values in scenes with overall low Sticky strength resulted in stronger Sticky interaction

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Foam and Splash particles could be born by a Source one voxel further outside the grid's positive sides

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Liquid Particles flew to infinity when animated Time Scale reached value of 0

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleFLIP Solver
 Using Foam Patterns caused some foam particles to get stuck at the liquid surface near geometries

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleFLIP SOLVER
 Liquid was creeping up the walls of Confine Geometry, and Liquid and Foam particles sometimes got shot away on collision with Confine Geometry

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleActive Bodies
 If an Active Body was made See-Through, starting the simulation created a clone with See-Through OFF

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleActive Bodies
 The Active Bodies Ground plane elasticity affected the elasticity of the collision objects as well

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleCacheless Simulations
 Sometimes more than 1 frame remained in RAM

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleCacheless Simulations
 The Grid RGB channel was not visible in Cacheless frames

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleSources
 Turning off Phoenix Source's Motion Velocity checkbox did not disable the velocity effect in Surface Force mode

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleVolume Shader
 Volumes were not affected by the V-Ray GI engine multipliers

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleVolume Shader
 Setting the Self-Shadowing of the Fire lights to None fell back to the Ray-Traced mode using V-Ray, since Phoenix 3.13

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleVolume Shader
 Rare random crash or memory leak when starting and stopping V-Ray GPU rendering

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleVolume Shader
 Wrong sampling of smoke opacity maps by the Volume Shader when TexUVW was enabled

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleVolume Shader
 Volumetrics which used any texture maps rendered slowly and did't utilize the CPU fully with Corona 6

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleVolumetric Illumination
 Fire Lights were visible in surfaces with Reflection Glossiness below 1

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleVolumetric Illumination
 Create Lights Even If Not Renderable created the lights in the wrong positions with V-Ray 5

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleParticle Shader
 Incorrect motion blur rendering particles in Bubbles/Splashes/Cellular Mode from a Simulator, moving together with an animated camera

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleParticle Shader
 Disable Liquid Shadows was not working in Points mode with Volume Light Cache enabled, or Bubbles and Cellular mode, since Phoenix 4.10

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleV-Ray IPR
 Crash during IPR of a Particle Shader in Bubbles mode with Render as Geometry ON

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleV-Ray IPR
 Moving the timeline in did not update the Particle Shader when rendering in IPR with V-Ray GPU if the Simulator was hidden

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleOcean Mesher
 Rendering in Mesh Mode with Smoothing and Motion Blur enabled lost the smoothed normals

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleTexUVW
 Crash when simulating TexUVW interpolation with certain Time Scale values

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleCache I/O
 Crash when exporting the ID channel of a particle system with more than 536'870'911 particles. Older Phoenix versions will not be able to read the new AUR files

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleBody Force
 Body Force's Spread Speed could create huge velocities if the affected channel had negative values

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleWave Force
 Lowering the Rate of Change of the Ocean Texture reduced the effect of the Wave Force

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titlePreview
 Missing frames in the viewport right after simulation restore

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titlePreview
 Crash when previewing particles and simulating the same frame with less particles since Phoenix 4.30

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titlePreview
 Auto Reduction didn't raise the Detail Reduction correctly with many Simulators in the scene

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titlePreview
 Crash with particle preview of certain numbers of particles with Detail Reduction

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titlePreview
 Crash when turning on Velocity Streamlines preview while having Force preview turned on

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titlePreview
 Graph Cells did not work when there wasn't a loaded cache

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titlePresets
 Toolbar Quick Setup presets could be created over the Active Body Solver icon

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleGPU Preview
 GPU preview was stretched and skewed in ortho mode

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleGPU Preview
 Particle System nodes were shown as Simulators in the Classic GPU Preview

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleGPU Preview
 GPU Preview was drawn incorrectly in inactive viewports, when "Active View Only" is deselected

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleGrid Texture
 Grid Texture was not updated correctly when used by multiple Simulators in fire/smoke rendering based on a Texture

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleParticle Texture
 Particle Texture was not working in Corona when Render-time Only was enabled

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
title3ds Max Integration
 Merging a scene with a Simulator named the same as an existing one renamed the caches of the existing Simulator

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
title3ds Max Integration
 Phoenix textures lost any custom names when saved to a scene

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
title3ds Max Integration
 Crash when using a Phoenix Simulator as a particle source for a V-Ray Instancer using V-Ray CPU (the fix requires both latest Phoenix and V-Ray)

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
title3ds Max Integration
 Splashes Foam on Hit Amount was named 'Size Distribution' in Track View

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
title3ds Max Integration
 Repeating Undo in the Phoenix MAXScript editor window ultimately erased all the script

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleUser Interface
 Stopping the simulation using Esc/Shift+Esc sometimes worked even when the 3ds Max window was not focused

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleUser Interface
 Aborting a Simulation where the Output cache path didn't exist was not working, since Phoenix 4.30

Status
colourRed
titlefixed
 
Status
titleSubmitter
 Submitting $(scene_path).vdb from 3ds Max for Backburner simulation wrote AUR caches