Thursday, December 1st, 2016 Posted by Jim Thacker

Next Limit ships RealFlow 10


Originally posted on 15 November 2016. Scroll down for news of the commercial release.

Next Limit has unveiled RealFlow 10, the next major update to its fluid simulation software.

The update adds a versatile new Dyverso multiphysics solver, improves performance of the existing Hybrido fluid solver, and adds a new Particle Skinner daemon, plus some neat workflow features.

It also marks a reversion to the original version numbering system: in early previews, the release was described as RealFlow 2016, but Next Limit has switched back to standard version numbers.



New multiphysics solver and updated fluid solvers
The biggest single new feature in RealFlow 10 is the versatile-looking Dyverso multiphysics solver.

It is capable of simulating liquids, rigid bodies, granular materials (shown above) and elastic objects, videos of all of which can currently be found on Next Limit’s website; plus viscous and viscoelastic fluids.

In addition, the Dyverso architecture – a GPU-based solver architecture introduced in RealFlow 2015 – has been redesigned “to get the most out of the modern GPUs and multi-core CPUs”.

The older Hybrido fluid solver has also been updated, with Next Limit citing a doubling of solve speed and an almost-halving of memory footprint in the test scenes on its website.



New Particle Skinner daemon and daemon Object modes
In addition, the update adds a new Particle Skinner daemon (above), which transfers the motion of an entire particle system to geometry objects.

As a result, the geometry can be made to deform as if it were a rigid body, elastic body, granular solid, or made up of a standard, viscous or viscoelastic liquid.

“In effect, particles function as bones for skinning the modified geometry,” comments Next Limit.



The existing k Volume daemon, traditionally used to kill particles that stray outside the bounding box for a simulation, gets a new Object mode.

The new mode enables an animated object to remove all of the particles through which it passes, as shown above: a kind of ‘animated Boolean’ effect for simulations.

Other existing daemons also get an Object mode for falloff, which enables artists to use 3D geometry to control the way the daemon’s effect falls off with distance travelled in 3D space.

Quite a few workflow improvements
Scene export has also been made more flexible: individual nodes now get their own export panels, rather than export parameters having to be edited globally via the Export Central tool.

In addition, users can now include text descriptions, tags or thumbnail images in scene files; and can choose whether or not to embed simulation data.

A new ‘Pack and Go’ option automatically packs all of the necessary external resources into a scene file.

Other workflow changes include a a handy-looking Quick Access Tool, which enables users to access any tool by typing the first few letters of its name into a floating dialog field.

The Project management window and scene node tree have also been redesigned, and there is now “better support for 4K monitors”.


Updated 1 December 2016: RealFlow 10 is now shipping for 64-bit Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

A node-locked licence of RealFlow 10 now costs $1,095; a floating licence costs $1,295. Both prices include one simulation node. One year’s premium support costs $645.

Other bundles containing different numbers of workstation and simulation nodes are also available.


Read a full list of new features in RealFlow 10 on Next Limit’s website