This page provides information on the Phoenix FD Standalone Previewer tool.
Overview
The Standalone Previewer tool is intended as a supplement to Phoenix FD, allowing you to preview AUR, OpenVDB and Field3D cache files without loading them into a DCC application such as 3ds Max or Maya. The Standalone Previewer extends existing Phoenix FD preview functionality with a custom 'Velocity Streamlines' option which traces the velocity field of the cache files and generates a streamline preview that is generally more informative than the standard Phoenix FD velocity preview.
Note that Mesh and Particle preview modes are not supported yet.
The Standalone Previewer requires a Phoenix FD GUI license.
UI Path:
Windows: C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\Phoenix FD\Maya20xx for x64\bin\standalone_previewer
Linux: usr > ChaosGroup > Phoenix FD > Maya 20xx-x64 >bin>standalone_previewer
Parameters
Open New Sequence – Loads a new cache file or sequence of files for preview.
Timeline – Changes the current frame of the cached sequence.
Flip Up Axis – 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 Maya).
Detail Reduction – Decreases the grid and particle detail in the preview. A value of 0 means no reduction. Increase this value if the interface starts to lag due to the simulation being very large.
Auto Reduction – Enables automatic adjustment of the Detail Reduction parameter to improve display performance. The preview detail will be reduced up to a point where the preview will display fast without blocking the interface. Note that the detail will only decrease automatically, but will not increase. This option works only for the Voxel and Particle previews.
Show Box – When enabled, displays the bounding box of the cache file in the Viewport.
Graph Cells – When enabled and Show Box is enabled, displays a lattice with the cell sizes on the sides of the cache's box.
Reset Camera – Resets the position of the Viewport camera to default.
Camera Near Clip Distance – When the camera goes inside the cache box, it might skip some of the GPU Preview information at the moment it crosses the grid border, so in this case you can reduce this option.
Background Color – Allows you to change the color of the viewport window's background. This will also be the background color for images saved by the Voxel or GPU Preview.
Voxel Preview
The default preview mode that displays the individual content of each cell. All enabled channels are drawn if their content is between the corresponding thresholds.
Only The Overlap Of – When enabled, all channels in a cell must meet the selected threshold conditions to visualize the cell.
Show Temperature – Enables the representation of the temperature.
Show Smoke – Enables the representation of the smoke.
Show Fuel – Enables the representation of the fuel.
Show Velocity – Enables the representation of the velocity.
Show Velocity Streamlines – Traces the velocity field of the cache files to generate a streamline preview.
RGB – Enables the representation of the RGB channel.
Auto Range – When enabled, automatically adjusts the preview ranges of visible channels for the current frame so that important data is always visible and the preview is always quick.
Draw Just a Slice – When enabled, only a voxel-thick cross-section of the grid becomes visible. This allows for a better view of occluded details and can help when previewing very rich data such as velocity fields.
Slice Level – Specifies the offset of the slice from the grid origin, in voxels
GPU Preview
Enable – Enables the GPU shading preview in the viewport.
Light Inclination – The GPU Preview is lit by one single directional light. This angle means the height of the directional light above the horizon. 0 degrees places the light right above the container. 90 degrees places the light to the side.
Light Azimuth – The GPU Preview is lit by one single directional light. This angle rotates the light horizontally around the container and it can go from 0 to 360 degrees.
Simple Smoke Opacity –This value is used as opacity multiplier - the higher it is, the denser the smoke will look.
Smoke Constant Color – This color is used for shading of the smoke with the GPU Preview.
Gamma – Specifies the gamma for the GPU Preview.
Step Size as % of Cell Size – Specifies the ray marching step as a percentage of the cell size. As the GPU Preview traces rays through the simulator, this value controls how often to get information from the grid. If the this value is more than 100, some cells will start getting skipped and artifacts may appear.
Image Saving Options
Browse – Opens a browser window to specify the directory and the name template for the output preview image files. The Reset Path button resets the path to the same directory as the loaded cache files.
Save Current Frame – Save an image preview of the currently loaded frame.
Save Sequence – Save an image preview for the range of the entire cached sequence.