JangaFX releases LiquiGen 0.1
LiquiGen: Day 1 pic.twitter.com/w8YEXWlPna
— Nick Seavert (@nickseavert) February 13, 2024
A demo of LiquiGen 0.1, posted by JangaFX CEO Nick Seavert. The first public preview of the real-time liquid simulation software is available in closed alpha to users of the JangaFX Suite.
JangaFX has released LiquiGen, its much-anticipated real-time fluid simulation software, in closed alpha for users of its JangaFX Suite of tools.
The software, which JangaFX says will be “one of the fastest and most intuitive liquid simulation tools ever built”, supports real-time meshing, and has built-in raster and path tracing renderers.
However, the initial LiquiGen 0.1 preview release has a number of practical limitations, and according to JangaFX, “isn’t indicative of final quality”.
A counterpart to EmberGen for simulating liquids rather than smoke and fire
First announced in 2020, LiquiGen is a counterpart to EmberGen, JangaFX’s popular real-time gaseous fluid simulation software, but for liquids rather than fire and smoke.
The news caused a lot of interest on community websites, with users hoping that the software would provide a faster, more interactive alternative to existing tools like RealFlow.
A real-time APIC solver with support for real-time meshing and two built-in renderers
Although it’s clearly still a long way from being production-ready, JangaFX’s release notes for LiquiGen 0.1 set out the core features of the software.
It’s a real-time sparse liquid solver, described as ‘pseudo-boundless APIC’ – that is, it uses the Affine Particle-in-Cell method for simulation.
APIC is usually regarded as more stable and less noise-prone for small-scale simulations than the FLIP (FLuid Implicit Particle) method used in many large-scale liquid solvers.
LiquiGen supports real-time meshing of the underlying particles, with users able to export the simulation to other DCC applications as Alembic caches, or to export the particles themselves.
Users can use both static or animated meshes as emitters and colliders, and influence the motion of the liquid with forces including Turbulence and Drag.
The software comes with two built-in renderers: a rasterized renderer for fast previz, and a path-traced renderer for high-quality output.
It supports point, direct and area lights, and HDR lighting, but the material system is currently described as “rudimentary”.
Still limited in the initial closed alpha release
The initial alpha is primarily a preview for JangaFX’s supporters, and has a number of known limitations.
In particular, mesh import is limited to eight meshes, and only “very well-behaved” meshes are likely to work properly as colliders.
There are also known issues when rendering, with path tracing not yet supported on AMD GPUs on Linux, and Intel GPUs not yet supported at all.
JangaFX plans a wider public alpha for later in the year.
As well as improved performance and stability, upcoming features including support for surface tension, viscosity, foam, spray and bubbles; and for mask-based emission from meshes.
Price, system requirements and release date
LiquiGen 0.1 is available for users of the $399.99 JangaFX Suite: EmberGen, plus new real-time terrain-generation tool GeoGen.
The initial alpha supports Windows and Linux, on systems with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.
JangaFX hasn’t announced pricing or a final release date for LiquiGen yet. However, the firm’s other software is available via both perpetual licenses and subscriptions.
Read a full list of features in LiquGen 0.1 on JangaFX’s Discord server
(Includes instructions for accessing the closed alpha, if you qualify)
Read more about LiquiGen on JangaFX’s website
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