Chaos discontinues its Phoenix fluid simulation software
Chaos has discontinued Phoenix, its fluid simulation software for 3ds Max and Maya.
Phoenix is now officially in ‘end-of-support’ status, and will receive no further new features, compatibility updates, or security fixes.
End of the road for the fluid simulation tool for 3ds Max and Maya
Originally released in 2010, Phoenix – then still known as Phoenix FD – was Chaos’s second major product line, after its V-Ray renderer.
It began as a smoke and fire simulation tool for 3ds Max, but quickly added a liquid solver, then a couple of years later, a Maya edition.
Subsequent updates broadened the toolset, adding support for viscous fluids and rigid-body interactions, but it never seemed to penetrate VFX and animation pipelines in the same way as rival third-party simulation tools like FumeFX.
The last major feature release, Phoenix 5.2, came out in 2023: subsequent updates have been mainly bugfixes and to support new versions of the host software.
No further compatibility updates or security fixes planned
Even those updates will now end, with Chaos announcing on its website that “no further feature development, compatibility updates, bug fixes, or security updates are planned”.
Existing licenses of the software will continue to function, so long as you continue to renew your subscription, Chaos having ended perpetual licenses of Phoenix in 2022.
New subscriptions are no longer available, but you can add seats to existing subscriptions until 14 May 2026.
Phoenix will also remain available as part of Chaos’s subscription bundles: the V-Ray Premium, V-Ray Collection, Corona Premium, and Corona Collection.
However, there is no guarantee that Phoenix will continue to functional correctly with future version of its host software: the final releases support 3ds Max 2027 and Maya 2026.
Read Chaos’s online FAQs about discontinuing Phoenix
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