Sneak peek: the new FLIP fluid solver in Insydium’s NeXus
Insydium has previewed new liquid simulation features in NeXus, its GPU-based particle and effects simulation add-on for Cinema 4D.
The features, which include full FLIP and APIC fluid solvers, a new GPU liquid meshing tool, and a crown splash generator, are now available in beta for existing users.
A GPU-accelerated particle effects tool for motion graphics and VFX work
First released in 2022, NeXus is a GPU-accelerated counterpart to X-Particles, the firm’s CPU-based particle-based multiphysics plugin for Cinema 4D.
It currently includes a liquid and granular fluid simulation toolset, plus a range of helper tools, and being Vulkan-based, is compatible with AMD, Apple, Intel and NVIDIA GPUs.
NeXus requires X-Particles, but is available separately to it.
Now includes FLIP and APIC liquid solvers, as well as PBD and SPH
In the initial release, nxFluids, NeXus’s liquid simulation toolset, featured PBD (Position Based Dynamics) and SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) solvers.
Since then, Cinema 4D has gotten its own native GPU-accelerated liquid simulation system, which also uses Position Based Dynamics.
Although PBD is suited to smaller, less demanding sims, the update to NeXus adds FLIP and APIC solvers of the type used in most dedicated liquid simulation tools, and in X-Particles itself.
You can see a mid-size water simulation using the new FLIP solver at 08:00 in the video above.
According to Insydium, the new solvers also enable nxFluids to replicate more complex real-world effects like “variable viscosity, liquid sheeting, and surface tension tendrils”.
New GPU liquid mesher and crown splash generator
Other new features in NeXus include nxMesher, a new GPU-based liquid meshing tool.
According to Insydium, it supports layered smoothing, can generate “multiple mesh types”, and can also output particle color, velocity and emitter IDs.
The update also adds nxSplash, a dedicated procedural crown-splash generator. It’s capable of creating both realistic and stylized splashes, and can be seen towards the end of the video.
Now in beta, and part of the Fused 2025 product update next month
The new features are already available to existing users as part of the latest beta of Fused 2025, the next version of Insydium’s suite of Cinema 4D add-ons, of which NeXus is a part.
Fused 2025 is due for a public release in December.
Price and system requirements
NeXus is available as part of Insydium’s Fused product bundles, and is compatible with Cinema 4D 19+, on Windows 7+ or Windows 7 or macOS 10.14.6+.
Fused Complete bundles include a perpetual license of NeXus and have a standard price of £890 (around $1,200). Fused subscriptions cost £390/year (around $525/year).
You can also create custom product bundles.
Read more about NeXus on the product website
(No information about the new liquid simulation tools at the time of writing)
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