An 8 million voxel simulation created in TurbulenceFD for LightWave: one of several user demos for the plugin uploaded to YouTube. You can find a (non-embeddable) official showreel on the Jawset website.

Jawset Visual Computing, aka developer Jascha Wetzel, has officially released TurbulenceFD, its gaseous fluid simulation and volumetric rendering plugin for LightWave and Cinema 4D.

In development for several years, the software has already been used on a number of major US TV series, including Terra Nova and CSI: Las Vegas. Its sister After Effects plugin, Turbulence2D, was relased in 2009.

Nifty features
Fluid simulation, which uses a grid-based voxel solver, adopts a hybrid CPU/GPU-based computation system. The software dynamically adjusts the bounding container so calculations are only performed for those parts of the scene that actually contain fluid, reducing sim times.

The structure of a simulation can be directed by placing emitters or collision objects, or via a procedural turbulence mapping system; while low-res tests can be up-resed to production quality without changing the overall structure of the simulation.

The renderer offers a GPU-based real-time viewport preview, and adds sub-grid detail. A shading curve editor enables users to map simulation values such as temperature or density to opacity and colour.

TurbulenceFD is compatible with Cinema 4D 11.5 and above or LightWave 9.6 and above, on Windows and Mac OS X. A single licence costs €399 (around $530).

Read a full list of features in TurbulenceFD

Download the free learning edition of TurbulenceFD

Tags: Cinema 4D, fluid simulation, gaseous, GPU-accelerated, hybrid, Jascha Wetzel, Jawset Visual Computing, LightWave, Terra Nova, TurbulenceFD, volumetric, voxel