Friday, October 12th, 2018 Posted by Jim Thacker

Insydium ships the X-Particles 2018 public release


Originally posted on 12 October 2018. Scroll down for news of the official release.

Insydium has begun posting sneak peek videos for the next public release of X-Particles, showcasing upcoming features in its particle and physics simulation tool for Cinema 4D.

The features are currently available via its Early Access program, and will roll out publicly in November.

Changes include speed boosts for particles and fluid sims, and new distance modes in the xpElektrik object.

Rewritten core engine promises faster particle and fluid simulations
According to Insydium, X-Particles’ engine has been “completely rewritten”, changing the way that modifiers and particles work.

The update results in some significant speed boosts: the video above shows 500,000 particles playing back in the viewport in near-real time, and 1.5 million particles at a “workable” frame rate.

In a side-by-side comparison with the current build shown at 02:20 in the video, a 500,000 particle system plays back around 60% faster.

The software’s xpFluidPBD object has also been rewritten and is now “far more physically accurate”, as well as providing independent settings for sub-steps and iterations.

In the side-by-side comparison at 03:50, it comes in over 2.5x faster than the current release build.

The update also introduces a “smart dynamic collisions” system that only generates collision values for a surface at contact areas, rather than for every polygon.

That results in the biggest speed boosts shown in the demo: at 05:40, you can see a simulation processing 16x faster than in the current release.



New distance modes in the xpElektrix object
A separate video shows X-Particles’ xpElektrix object, which generates lightning bolt style effects.

The new distance modes enable users to “link particle to particle with the xpElektrix Object, to create nearest distance connections”.

You can see a complete list of features rolled out through the X-Particles Early Access program so far this year in the online documentation – all of the ones previewed above date from the May 2018 update.



Updated November 2018: The X-Particles 2018 public release is now available.

As well as the features listed above, the update adds a new mode of operation in the xpWeight modifier and the ability to mesh volumes in the OpenVDB mesher.

Pricing and availability
The 2018 public release of X-Particles is available for any 64-bit edition of Cinema 4D R14+ on Windows and Mac OS X. The update is free to users with active maintenance subscriptions.

A new floating licence of the software costs £540 (around $710).


Read more about the X-Particles 2018 public release on Insydium’s website

See more X-Particles preview videos on Insydium’s YouTube channel