Realflow's New Plug-in Integrates Fluid Simulation into 3ds Max

RealFlow| 3ds Max is a new plug-in that integrates fluid simulation and related fluid tools, built on RealFlow's Multi-physics Dyverso solver, directly into Autodesk 3ds Max.

Now 3ds Max users can simulate liquid, granular, viscous and viscoelastic materials without having to go back and forth between 3D platforms. The interface and interactive workflow inside 3ds Max requires fewer clicks, in order to make simulation work more straightforward.

Users have immediate access to RealFlow's ready-to-use force daemons, GPU-powered fluids and materials, and fast OpenVDB mesher. The whole workflow is integrated inside 3ds Max so that you can use the native 3ds Max tools combined with RealFlow. The plug-in is compatible with Autodesk 3ds Max 2017, 2018 and 2019.

OpenVDB mesher

Although you will no longer need the RFConnect plugin for exchanging data between RealFlow and 3ds Max, you can still use the expertise you acquired when it was necessary. Now, users can turn objects into obstacles and emitters straightaway, render complex meshes or create particles from shapes.

The tools are built on RealFlow's Multi-physics Dyverso solver, which means that apart from the classic liquids, RealFlow | 3ds Max includes granulars, viscous and viscoelastic materials. Sand can be washed away by water and cream floats on top of coffee, as they do in the real world. Also, all of the fluids and materials are GPU-accelerated and support CUDA and OpenCL, allowing more time for iteration.

There are many, varied tools to express and control creative ideas like crown splashes, entwined spline emitters, swirling splashes and thin sheets of fluids moving in slow-motion. You can also create initial states from arbitrary frames from a simulation to use as a starting point for a new simulation pass, a simple tool that saves a lot of time in RealFlow | 3ds Max.

By setting up filters in the interface, you can use RealFlow's OpenDVB meshing engine to create and fine-tune millions of polygons in a few seconds. RealFlow | 3ds Max meshes can store data like age or velocity and apply them at render time, and the system has weight maps to control the effects of mixing different fluids.

RealFlow emitter

Through a new function called RFCollider, RealFlow | 3ds Max interacts with 3ds Max built-in object types. You can use objects as obstacles and containers, allow animated bodies to collide with fluids to create impressive splashes, and control this interaction using a number of physical properties such as friction, stickiness or bounciness.

Forces and daemons are key elements in RealFlow | 3ds Max. Forces and Daemons are related to one another and their functionality is diverse. Some daemons are used to remove particles during a simulation, but many of them introduce forces, acting not only on fluids, but also on rigid and soft bodies. Many of the force-based daemons can be controlled and limited with completely customizable falloffs to shape their behaviour and scope - examples are gravity, attraction or wind.

Falloffs

Objects and textures work both ways in RealFlow | 3ds Max. You can use the object texture to emit particles, customize properties like its friction or generate new textures where particles leave wet marks on an object’s surface.  www.nextlimit.com/realflow