tyFlow 2.0 now simulates smoke and fire as well as particles
Animator and game developer Tyson Ibele has released tyFlow 2.0, a major update to his popular particle and multiphysics add-on for 3ds Max.
The release adds Zenith – a new GPU-based sparse fluid engine for simulating smoke and fire – plus a set of readymade machine learning models for upresing and detailing its output.
A versatile particle-based multiphysics system for VFX and motion graphics work
tyFlow began life as a “complete rewrite” of Particle Flow: a next-generation replacement for 3ds Max’s ageing native particle system.
Over time, it evolved into a multiphysics system, making it possible to simulate granular fluids like sand, rigid bodies, soft bodies and cloth, and even crowds.
More recent updates have also added a terrain-generation system and AI rendering.
tyFlow can also import and manipulate data in OpenVDB format, with volumes able to interact with particle systems, and integrates directly with key 3ds Max production tools.
The simulation core is CPU-based, while individual solvers are GPU-based.
tyFlow 2.0: new GPU-based Zenith solver simulates smoke and fire
To that, tyFlow 2.0 adds something that Ibele had originally said would never be part of tyFlow: a dedicated fluid solver.
The software’s new Zenith solver is a high-performance sparse fluid engine, intended for simulating effects like fire and smoke.
It runs entirely on the GPU – it’s CUDA-based, so you will need a NVIDIA card – and is designed for large, production-quality simulations: Ibele says that on a 24GB GPU, “domains with multiple billions of voxels are not only possible but very manageable”.
Fluid emission can be driven by particle data, surface properties, texture maps or expressions, while the motion of the fluid can be influenced by forces, vorticity and advection.
The solver works with 3ds Max’s Nitrous display system, and includes a custom ray marching engine, making it possible to preview simulations in the viewport with native support for heat glow, motion blur, temperature blur, and ambient occlusion. Renders refine progressively.
tyFlow also now ships with pre-trained machine learning models – again, CUDA-based – for upresing and sharpening sims; and a voxel interpolation system for retiming them.
For pipeline integration, Zenith simulation data is exposed via a custom API, making it possible for developers to connect renderers or plugins to its output.
The operators that control fluid sims are available in the free edition of tyFlow, but for rendering support and full file import and export, you need a paid Pro license.
Developed by Chaos’s former Team Lead for Phoenix
The new tools were developed by Svetlin Nikolov, former Team Lead for Chaos’s Phoenix fluid solver.
“For a while I was pretty firm on my decision not to develop a dedicated fluid solver for tyFlow,” commented Ibele. “I’m already stretched thin [and a] solver like this is [a] massive undertaking.”
“Svetlin’s herculean efforts on Zenith have now made this seemingly impossible task a reality for all tyFlow users.”
Other new features in tyFlow 2.0
As well as Zenith, the release adds several new operators and modifiers, and the PhysX Shape and PhysX Collision operators get a SDF shape mode for more accurate concave collisions.
You can find a full list of changes via the link at the foot of the story.
Price and system requirements
tyFlow 2.0 is compatible with 3ds Max 2020+. Some of its GPU-accelerated features are hardware-agnostic; others are CUDA-based and require a compatible NVIDIA GPU.
tyFlow Free, the free edition, includes all of the simulation tools, and can be used commercially, but lacks CPU multithreading, GPU acceleration, or cache export.
tyFlow Pro costs $495 for a perpetual node-locked license; $645 for a floating license.
Read a full list of new features in tyFlow in the online documentation
Visit the tyFlow product website
Download the free edition of tyFlow (Does not require registration)
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