More control over Active Bodies
Create procedural animations for active bodies with a directable Thruster Force.
Restrict active bodies to move or rotate along a selected horizontal or vertical axis using the Axis Lock.
Extra control over how active bodies interact with your scene — choose whether they should emit, attract, and retain fluids, and much more.
New and enhanced presets
Create realistic effects quickly and easily with new and enhanced presets.
Realistic Foam Patterns
Create more realistic foam, faster. Easily add variety to the size and look of your patterns.
Voxel Shader
Shade fire and smoke simulations, and meshes in a single simulator using the Voxel Shader — giving you more time to be creative.
Standalone Simulations
Speed up your simulations with the initial implementation of the Phoenix Standalone Simulator and easily debug your scenes through the Phoenix simscene Node Editor.
Combined changelog since Phoenix 4.41:
NEW FLIP SOLVER New 'Size Variation' and 'Stringy' options for the Foam Pattern shapes, allowing for more diverse and interesting patterns
NEW FLIP SOLVER Multithreaded the routine where moving obstacles push the FLIP particles
NEW FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER 'Burn Smoke RGB' color option for coloring the smoke created by fuel burning
NEW ACTIVE BODIES Pick Active Bodies as emitters in Sources, as attractors in Body Force, in 'Distance To' fields in Tuner Expressions, as Birth Volumes and Render Cutters
NEW ACTIVE BODIES New Thruster node for the Active Bodies, allowing you to propel an active body in a certain direction, which can also be attached to the body so it changes direction as the body rotates
NEW ACTIVE BODIES New Axis Constraint node for the Active Bodies, allowing you to block the movement of the active body in a certain direction, or to also stop the active body from rotating around a certain axis
NEW ACTIVE BODIES New option in the Active Body Solver to use the Simulator's jammed walls as obstacles for Active Bodies
NEW ACTIVE BODIES Added an 'Affect by Foam' option to the Active Body Solver that controls how strongly the Foam pushes the Active Bodies - by default it is off
NEW VOXEL SHADER New separate Voxel Shader node, allowing shading of both fire/smoke and meshes from the loaded data of the same Simulator without having to duplicate the Simulator
NEW PARTICLE SHADER Option to flatten particles near the Liquid Simulator's borders in Ocean Mesh mode, like the vertices of the ocean do
NEW PARTICLE SHADER 'Color From RGB Channel' option allowing for coloring the rendered particles based on Phoenix's RGB channel much faster and without the need to plug a Particle Texture in the Color Map slot
NEW PRT I/O PRT cache import straight into the Simulator and the Standalone Preview, without the need for the PRT Reader node. This also allows retiming of PRT sequences
NEW STANDALONE SIMULATOR New "phoenixfd.exe" command-line executable that simulates .simscene files exported from 3ds Max, similar to V-Ray Standalone. It simulates up to 40% faster than inside 3ds Max or Maya. Currently it only supports Simulator and Source nodes, as well as Phoenix node properties. Still to be added are: Foam/Splash options, support for animated options and animated geometries, resimulation, textures
NEW STANDALONE SIMULATOR Phoenix FD menu option to Export, Simulate and simultaneously launch the Standalone Preview application to observe the simulation result
NEW STANDALONE SIMULATOR Added a Phoenix Node Viewer application for exploring the node graph of .simscene files. Dragging and dropping would also display .vrscene files
NEW STANDALONE PREVIEW Mesh Preview, including wireframe mode, customizable via the command line
NEW STANDALONE PREVIEW Viscosity Voxel Preview
NEW GPU PREVIEW Smoke Opacity modulated or replaced by textures will show in the viewport GPU Preview
NEW CACHE CONVERTER Reduce or increase grid resolution with the cache_converter tool
NEW TOOLBAR Simulation Restore button in the Phoenix toolbar
NEW PRESETS New 'Jet Engine' and 'Stormy Sea' quick setup toolbar presets
NEW PRESETS New 'Ice Cubes' and 'Speedboat' quick setup toolbar presets
NEW PHOENIX Support for 3ds Max 2023
NEW PHOENIX Windows 11 support for NUMA machines. Windows Vista is no longer supported after this change and the minimum supported version is Windows 7
NEW USER INTERFACE Added tooltips for many of the Simulator's rollout. More to come
IMPROVED FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER Sped up fire/smoke simulations with up to 20%
IMPROVED FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER Multi-threaded the Adaptive Grid of fire/smoke simulations when Preallocation is On
IMPROVED FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER Allowed the use of $(same_as_output) as Resimulation Output Path
IMPROVED FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER Repeatedly increase the resolution using resimulation that overwrites the same cache sequence
IMPROVED FLIP SOLVER FLIP resimulation now writes caches to new "_resim" files instead of overwriting the old ones
IMPROVED FLIP SOLVER Sped up and improved thread balance of liquid simulations with moving obstacles
IMPROVED FLIP SOLVER Improved 'B2B Interaction' and 'Splash Liquid-Like' that don't shoot particles away and can now be used even with Ocean setups
IMPROVED FLIP SOLVER Allowed values below 1 for the 'Mist Amount' option and excluded it from affecting how fast Splash particles are deleted
IMPROVED FLIP SOLVER Ocean Simulations with Adaptive Grid can now expand upwards without the ocean level changing
IMPROVED SIMULATION Sped up simulations with enabled Motion Inertia that don't actually move
IMPROVED SIMULATION Allowed rendering with V-Ray GPU while the CPU simulation is running in both IPR and production modes. With V-Ray CPU, the simulation is paused during rendering
IMPROVED ACTIVE BODIES New model for calculating buoyancy of Active Bodies, allowing better interaction with the Wave Force in large scale ocean vessel setups
IMPROVED ACTIVE BODIES 'Collider Type' option in the Node Properties, allowing choice between fast or precise collision options
IMPROVED VOLUME SHADER Reduced the required V-Ray GPU memory when rendering fire/smoke volumes
IMPROVED VOLUME SHADER Probabilistic shading now has an effect only with V-Ray
IMPROVED VOLUME SHADER Sped up render start with thousands of vrscene simulator copies
IMPROVED PARTICLE SHADER Fall back to Bubble mode when rendering with V-Ray GPU in Point mode
IMPROVED MESHER Mesh surface from the Viscosity channel, allowing to change the mesh volume when simulating melting or solidifying of liquids
IMPROVED ANIMATION Sped up 2x frame blending with Time Bend controls
IMPROVED CACHE I/O Updated OpenVDB from version 5 to version 8.1
IMPROVED CACHE I/O Sparsify VDBs exported by the Phoenix simulation or the Cache Converter so now they are generally smaller
IMPROVED CACHE I/O Recognize by default Velocity(x), Velocity(y) and Velocity(z) channels from VDBs from thinkingParticles
IMPROVED CACHE I/O Show the sizes on storage of the different data chunks in AUR files in the Standalone Preview and Cache Converter
IMPROVED STANDALONE PREVIEW The Phoenix installer now associates the Phoenix Previewer as default program for opening AUR, VDB, F3D and PRT files
IMPROVED STANDALONE PREVIEW Drag & drop AUR, VDB, F3D and PRT caches in the Phoenix Previewer
IMPROVED STANDALONE PREVIEW 'Auto Load Latest' option that monitors the storage for newly appearing sequence files
IMPROVED STANDALONE PREVIEW Right click menu over the loaded cache directory for copying the full path or just the file name
IMPROVED LOGGING 'Log Verbosity' option in the Phoenix Preferences that has these levels: Debug, Info, Important, Warnings and Errors. Low res simulations can be 10% faster in 'Important' compared to 'Debug'
IMPROVED PRESETS Faster and better looking Fire quick setup toolbar preset
IMPROVED PRESETS Increased the brightness of the Cold Smoke quick setup toolbar preset
IMPROVED PRESETS Increased the height and tweaked the colors of the Candle quick setup toolbar preset
IMPROVED PRESETS Use just one Particle Shader for all emitters in the Ink in Water quick setup toolbar preset, and shade using the new 'Color From Particle RGB Channel' option
IMPROVED PRESETS Improved the simulation and rendering of the Ocean toolbar quick setup preset and made it more like the Ship example scene
IMPROVED PARTICLE TEXTURE Allowed selecting channels that are not available in the entire cache sequence in the Color From Particle Channel box
IMPROVED PLAIN FORCE Affect Temperature, Smoke and Fuel separately by turning off the new 'Affect All Fire/Smoke Channels' option
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Texture slot for Surface channel by Texture in the Liquid Simulator
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Renamed the 'Droplet Breakup' option to 'Droplet Formation' in order to be more clear what the option does
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Renamed the 'B2B Interaction' option to 'Foam Volume' in order to be more clear what the option does
IMPROVED USER INTERFACE Show a warning saying that Foam on Hit Resimulation requires Splashes to be resimulated
IMPROVED ABC I/O Warning in the log file when rendering a mesh with Alembic compatibility enabled from the Export rollout
REMOVED PHOENIX Dropped support for 3ds Max 2016 and 2017
REMOVED USER INTERFACE Hid the 'Backtrace (Classic)' Advection Method from the user interface. It is still accessible as $.advtype=0 via MaxScript
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Initial Liquid Fill produced wetmap over submerged Solid geometry even when there were no liquid particles nearby
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Wetmap didn't fully cover objects submerged in liquid created by a Volume Brush Source
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Volume Inject Liquid Sources created more particles in voxels partially overlapped by the emitter or by Solid obstacles
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Foam Birth Amount differed from Maya. Now it's in particles per cubic centimeter
FIXED FLIP SOLVER The Viscosity Diffusion effect changed drastically between 1 and 0.999
FIXED FLIP SOLVER Non-Solid liquid emitters in Surface Force mode with disabled Motion Velocity contributed negative velocity
FIXED FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER Adaptive Grid crashed when a fire/smoke simulation expanded over 2.1 billion voxels
FIXED FIRE/SMOKE SOLVER Rare crash when resimulating with Adaptive Grid with Preallocation
FIXED SOURCES Changing the grid resolution affected Volume Inject discharge of liquids (scenes saved with older Phoenix versions might simulate differently after this fix)
FIXED SOURCES Volume Brush created liquid, foam and splash particles with a gap around submerged objects, compared to Initial Liquid Fill
FIXED SOURCES Discharge modifiers in Object space were not correct when the emitter was another Simulator
FIXED SOURCES Clear Inside did not work when using non-Solid geometries instanced over particles
FIXED ACTIVE BODIES Liquid resimulation broke Active Bodies simulation
FIXED ACTIVE BODIES Active Body simulation with many bodies was very slow with Macro Recorder enabled
FIXED ACTIVE BODIES Active Bodies may freeze in scenes with large meter scale
FIXED ACTIVE BODIES Restoring a simulation with Active Bodies caused them to jump to the scene origin for a frame
FIXED ACTIVE BODIES Sometimes a feedback loop accelerated Active Bodies through the liquid
FIXED SCENE BODY INTERACTION Some Out of memory situations when interacting with scene geometries or particles were not handled and lead to a crash
FIXED SCENE BODY INTERACTION Geometries with scale of 0% created huge velocities in the simulation
FIXED VOLUME SHADER No motion blur from translation with more than 10 Simulators in Volumetric mode
FIXED VOLUME SHADER Noise with Fire simulation and reflective material with glossy below 1
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Render artifacts using Probabilistic Shading when mixing two Particle Shaders in Bubbles/Splashes/Cellular mode
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Crash when rendering Particle Shader using Ray-traced Scattering mode and Probabilistic Shading turned on
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Probabilistic volumetrics rendered particles in Point mode incorrectly when combined with Smoke
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Particle Shader with motion blur does not render with Dali Renderer, since Phoenix 4.40
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER thinkingParticles' Post Cache option did not affect rendering particles
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Render slowdown on machines with many cores in Bubble/Cellular/Splashes mode between V-Ray Next and V-Ray 5
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Count Multiplier slowed down significantly after Phoenix 4.10
FIXED PARTICLE SHADER Count Multiplier above 1 created particles even between distant chunks of particles
FIXED MESHER Memory leak when rendering in Mesh mode with V-Ray Standalone
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Crash when rendering more than 10 merged Ocean Simulators, since Phoenix 4.40
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Artifacts in the mesh normals over liquid features which render in front of the horizon line, in Ocean or Cap Mesh mode with Horizon Roughness
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Line artifacts or loss of detail with Cap Mesh mode and Ocean Мesh mode and low angled camera
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Stepping artifacts in Ocean Mesh mode smoothed with Use Liquid Particles when the liquid level was much different than the ocean level
FIXED OCEAN MESHER Ocean Mesh rendered differently when the V-Ray Frame Buffer was turned off
FIXED V-RAY IPR All types of Phoenix previews were drawn on top of and occluded V-Ray's Viewport IPR
FIXED V-RAY IPR Changing the frame during V-Ray IPR CPU distorted the Phoenix mesh when it had modifiers
FIXED PRT I/O The PRT Reader's transform did not update between renders if 'Attach to Node Transform' was turned on/off or the node was moved
FIXED PROPERTY LISTER Crash when typing in the Clear Channels field of the Property Lister
FIXED PROPERTY LISTER The Property Lister crashed when Macro Recorder was enabled
FIXED ANIMATION Re-timed particles using Time Bend Controls lost their ID channel
FIXED ANIMATION Re-timing particles without IDs caused them to disappear in blended frames
FIXED ANIMATION Grid previews disappeared when switching to "Velocity" Grid Blend mode after changing the Input Play Speed to <1 while the Grid Blend mode was a different one
FIXED ANIMATION Grid simulation with high velocity using Adaptive Grid and Precise Tracing Grid Blend mode appeared chopped apart
FIXED PREVIEW The voxel preview in 3ds Max 2022, update 1, was multiplied by the object color
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW Cache File Content time did not show leading zeroes before hours and minutes
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW The vertical scroll in the Log and the Cache File Content windows did not work if the text had too many lines
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW Rare crash when opening the Particle Preview rollout of the Phoenix Previewer
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW Saving an image sequence in the Standalone previewer in CLI mode was saving only the first frame
FIXED STANDALONE PREVIEW Zooming in very close on large cache files locked the camera
FIXED CACHE I/O Particles created by the simulation sometimes had invalid or repeating IDs
FIXED CACHE I/O Тhe grid velocity from the vector "vel" channel of imported VDB caches was not the correct scale
FIXED CACHE I/O Grid RGB channel broke when the grid size was above 1 billion voxels
FIXED CACHE I/O AUR caches containing Particle Velocity increased in size, since Phoenix 4.40
FIXED CACHE I/O Smoothed Velocity channel of VDB caches incorrectly had very large or very small scale
FIXED PARTICLE TEXTURE Dependency loop Error when trying to assign a Particle Texture reading data from the same Simulator that it was applied to
FIXED PARTICLE TEXTURE Hang with Particle Texture applied over a Simulator, using 'Render-time Only' turned off and reading tyFlow particles
FIXED 3DS MAX INTEGRATION Hiding all Phoenix nodes translated the instances when the Simulator was plugged in the Particles list of a V-Ray Instancer
FIXED 3DS MAX INTEGRATION Increase/Decrease Grid Resolution buttons scaled the Simulator size after merging a scene in 3ds Max 2022
FIXED PRESETS The Waterfall toolbar Quick Setup preset changed since Phoenix 4.30
FIXED PRESETS The Ink in Water Quick Setup preset created much less drag particles than in Maya
FIXED PRESETS The animated noise movement was slower with large scale and faster with low scale Clouds quick setup toolbar preset
FIXED PRESETS Loading a Particle Shader preset or a Simulator render preset in disconnected the Render Cutter geometry
FIXED USER INTERFACE Surface Channel of the Liquid Simulator always got reset to Liquid when rendering started
FIXED VRSCENES Rendering animation to vrscene or on the Cloud during simulation rendered only the first cache from the sequence
FIXED VRSCENES Particles rendered as Bubbles inside of a liquid mesh rendered darker when exported from 3ds Max to VRScene or rendered on the Chaos Cloud
FIXED VRSCENES Phoenix mesh with modifiers rendered incorrectly in animation with V-Ray CPU and GPU Standalone
FIXED VRSCENES Buckets in the Shadow, Raw Shadow, GI, Raw GI, Light Select and Lighting render elements of a Simulator with Volume Light Cache in the V-Ray Standalone
FIXED THINKINGPARTICLES Particle Shader rendering thinkingParticles produced different results every time
FIXED INSTALLATION openvdbio_phx.dll and field3dio_phx.dll were not added to V-Ray Standalone plugins folder by the Phoenix installer
FIXED LOGGING Simulations which started under 10 million voxels but later expanded, stopped writing to the Phoenix log file, since Phoenix 4.40