Deep FX releases Deep Rising FX 3.0

Deep FX – aka developer Mambo Banda – has released Deep Rising FX 3.0, the latest major update to the particle-based fluid simulation system for LightWave, adding support for motion blur and fluid colours.

The release also integrates the open-source SPlisHSPlasH simulation library into the software.

A native LightWave fluid simulator compatible with other key pipeline tools
First released in 2017, Deep Rising FX is intended as an artist-friendly native fluid simulator for LightWave.

The software uses a “state of the art” Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) solver capable of reproducing real-world phenomena including viscosity, surface tension and vorticity effects.

The plugin supports OpenVDB meshing, and also supports RealFlow’s .bin and Houdini’s .bgeo file formats, making it possible to exchange particle caches with other software.

Separate solvers simulate granular materials and viscous fluids. Both the Arena granular solver and the default Euphorik liquid solver can be run on the GPU.

New in version 3.0: integration of the SPlisHSPlasH simulation library
Deep Rising FX 3.0 integrates open-source fluid simulation library SPlisHSPlasH into the software.

It is also SPH-based, and has a number of interesting capabilities, including multi-phase simulations and simulation of deformable solids, including two-way coupling between solids and fluids.

Although it is primarily targeted at academic research, Deep FX describes its performance as “good”.

Other features: support for motion blur, velocity and colour maps, OpenVDB export
The update also introduces what Deep FX describes as users’ most-requested feature: motion blur.

Other new features include support for fluid colours, the option to generate velocity and vertex colour maps for meshed simulations, and to use multiple mesh caches in a scene.

At the time of posting, there doesn’t seem to be an updated feature list on Deep FX’s website, so we’ve reproduced the changelog that Mambo Banda sent us by email at the foot of this story.

Pricing and availability
Deep Rising FX 3.0 is available for LightWave 11.6.3 and above, running on Windows 7+. The price of a new licence has risen by $50 since the previous release, to $299.99.

Read more about Deep Rising FX on Deep FX’s website

New features in Deep Rising FX 3.0

• Motion Blur
  – Allows raytraced motion blur
  – Allows motion vector passes
• Kinematic Object Substep Sampling
  – Smoother, more stable collisions for keyframe objects
  – Easier to animate keyframes scenes that interact with fluids
  – Also improves simulation stability
• Adjustable particle resolution (unified particle sizes)
  – Resolution factor can be scaled from a factor of 1 – 500
  – Allows fluids particle densities of 1000^3 per cubic meter (lowest) to 500000^3 per cubic meter (highest)
• SPlisHSPlasH
  – SPlisHSPlasH is an open-source library for the physically-based simulation of fluids. Features include:
  • explicit and implicit viscosity methods
  • current surface tension approaches
  • different vorticity methods
  • computation of drag forces
  • support for multi-phase simulations
  • simulation of deformable solids
  • micropolar vorticity
  • two-way coupling with deformable solids
  • fluid emitters
  • high viscosity
  • state-of-the-art research solver
  • different density for fluids
• Fluid Colors
  – Individual source colors for visualisation and color maps
• Color Maps
  – Meshing sequences now have vertex color (RGB) information for rendering
• Velocity Maps
  – Meshing sequences now have velocity information for rendering
• New Mesh Sampling
  – Poisson Disk sampling for surfaces
  – OpenVDB for volumes
• Meshing Groups
  – Mesh groups allow you to mesh a specific source in the domain
• Mesh Sequencer
  – Now possible to use multiple mesh caches at the same time in the same scene
  – Auto load sequence from saved file