Phoenix documentation

[Ziggi]

This is rediculous!

You have released a serious plugin with amazing capabilities but there is simply no learning resources available on the subject!

The manual is pointless - it is less than helpful for brginners as it shows no appropriate workflow.
Basic video tutorials are pointless to as they focus on solving particular problems rather than generic ones.

- How to make smoke more quite and laminar or more turbulent?
- How to make particles to dissipate more quickly?
- How to avoid forming of "mashroom"?
- How to controll particle transparency dependent on particle age?

The entire interface is docused on some pointless parameters unrelated to artistic aspect of the simulation.
Prestets are non-existent - there is no starting point for experiments provided.

For three hours alredy I try to get a simple subtle cofee-steam above a mug and now fuc...ing way!
Either I most often I get some kind of nuclear-like explosion or an effect or turbulent cigarette smoke or a massive smoke from an industrial chimney.
Simply - cannot obtain a subtle, non-turbulent steam!

WTF ??? - Really - can't you deliver some more artist-friendly interface what would expose controls better reflecting macroscoping poperties of an effect?

Rgs,

[Ivaylo Katev]

hi ziggi,
we know about the documentation problem and we are working on it.
about your coffee steam - it seems like an easy task, but it is not. the the steam is NOT just a smoke, despite the visual similarity. the steam has the property to disappear, the smoke just dissipates keeping its total amount.
how to do this with phoenix? perhaps it is a good idea to add a disappearing parameter to the smoke in the next versions, but currently we haven't such a parameter, so you have to use temperature instead smoke as steam. the temperature has a cooling option that is exactly the disappearing we need.
so, what you need to do is:
- set some cooling, let say 1.
- simulate (you can use the vorticity parameter to control the laminarity)
- change the transparency to be temperature based, by default it is simple smoke.
- switch off the light emission, otherwise your steam will look like a fire
- arrange the transparency curve to achieve a good appearance of the steam. make it to start from zero at 1000 and to grow to 0.1 at 2000
to avoid multiple simulations you can control where the steam disappears by the point where the curve hits zero - the lower is the zero temperature, the longer will be the steam visible.

regards

[Ziggi]

Thank you, Ivaylo for your prompt feedback. Some sample scene would be perhaps even more practical in this case.
Please, have a look on the screenshot below and tell me please, how the hell get rid of this evil "nuclear mashroom" effect:



I've got run out of ideas already. For whatever reason, rather than slow, gradual release I always get this explosion at the beginning of the simulation.

Rgs,

[Paul Oblomov]

It is great, that people starting to think, that fluid simulations are easy

Animate discharge, start with lower temperature, use different transparency curve, just cut the flow at start with high adaptive grid settings, use dummy objects, with settings, that will keep the flow from blowing.....

[Ziggi]

Paul - having read your comment I started to believe it would be really faster and easier to do the whole thing in After FX...

And I also start to think there is an influential group of software developers who indeed believe fluid simulations should remain ultra-difficult task forever, so they obstruct any ideas focused on new user interfaces directly translating underlying simulation parametres into comprehensive observables "Such UIs are for dummies" - they say - "We are serious developers, so we will give them such an UI they will spend a year trying to get a clue..." - hehe.

[instinct]

I seriously doubt anyone in the business of selling software is trying to keep software more complex than needed. It would simply reduce the amount of possible customers. Fluid simulation IS a highly complex topic. Most of the things you can do with Phoenix or similar simulators are not faster and easier in a 2D package, but impossible. But that comes at the cost of complexity.

Note that i do appreciate simpler and more effective UIs and there's still a lot to be wished for. But that will not make fluid simulation an easy task, but it will make things a lot more efficient to use for those knowing what they do i think.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Ziggi]

Thorsten - sure, I can only agree. But the problem is that it's pretty hard to understand such a complex application having just a basic, simplistic manual explaining very briefly GUI elements with no in-dept explanation of the overall process. On the other hand - there are some good questions for developers too. For instance - why the hell there is no GUI element allowing to controll discharge speed. Why the whole load is supposed to explode momentary rather than with predefined and controllable rate?

Isn't it good question?

I simply believe they started the whole Phoenix idea with "explosion simulation" and then became to convert it into more general FD simulator. But initial setup has remained and now we have to do crazy workarounds for really basic tasks.

Then - why no single preset is provided with the software? Why only a few sample scenes - only very briefly explained? IMHO - a serious preset pack could be of great value for developers!

OK - there are complex scenes appropriate for artists who specialize in fluid dynamics but there is massive demand for basic tasks appropriate for CG generalists like myself. I reall have no time and interest to investigate FD in dept. I only need some basic stuff but of good quality. Cigarette smoke what looks realistic, cofee mug steam what looks realistic. Campfire what looks realistic. 3DS Max default systems used to give non-realistic look of such effects. This is why I try Phoenix. But it is definitely a disaster! Whatever you think - I do not try to creat some great cinematic "LORD" effct!!! Just a basic coffe-mug sene... And the Phoenix community feedback is: "poor guy - he would like to get this too easy, he has no understanding of simulation engine, etc.".

Well, I do not like to complain but the learing curve involved in Phoenix seems definitely too slope. I stronly believe it could be less steppy if its developers put more effort into proper documentation, more well explained examples, more basic examples covering in details various types of elementary effects rather than complex scenes integrating several issues into one scene what are only briefly explained. I also believe a good bunch of preset params would be of great value for FD beginners.

And the community what could at least provide some setup screenshot rather than "shooting" a newbie with a dozen of abstract ideas...

Best regards!

[instinct]

For instance - why the hell there is no GUI element allowing to controll discharge speed. Why the whole load is supposed to explode momentary rather than with predefined and controllable rate?

Discharge is a value defining the amount of liquid per area. Why would it need an additional GUI element? That would make things unnecessarily unstandard in my eyes. To control it you animate the value. Also it wouldn't make a lot of sense to have it predefined i guess, because every single scene is completely different.

I simply believe they started the whole Phoenix idea with "explosion simulation" and then became to convert it into more general FD simulator. But initial setup has remained and now we have to do crazy workarounds for really basic tasks.

Have not played much with the fluid part. Phoenix originates from Aura, so it was a generic fire and smoke simulation rather than general FD prolly. But as haven't used it for fluids i cannot comment on that part.

Then - why no single preset is provided with the software? Why only a few sample scenes - only very briefly explained? IMHO - a serious preset pack could be of great value for developers!

Agreed to some extent. Needs a lot of care tho, because i guess presets will not work for 90% of the scenes (to many influences fubaring the result. Like scale, type of source, etc. etc.). But would be nice.

OK - there are complex scenes appropriate for artists who specialize in fluid dynamics but there is massive demand for basic tasks appropriate for CG generalists like myself. I reall have no time and interest to investigate FD in dept. I only need some basic stuff but of good quality. Cigarette smoke what looks realistic, cofee mug steam what looks realistic. Campfire what looks realistic. 3DS Max default systems used to give non-realistic look of such effects. This is why I try Phoenix. But it is definitely a disaster! Whatever you think - I do not try to creat some great cinematic "LORD" effct!!! Just a basic coffe-mug sene... And the Phoenix community feedback is: "poor guy - he would like to get this too easy, he has no understanding of simulation engine, etc.".

I don't consider any of these tasks trivial or easy tbh. I have seen VERY few really good campfire setups for examples. It's damn hard. Especially since every single Hockey-Mom out there knows exactly how a campfire looks. Crazy out of this world effects are easier in some ways. I don't think Paul's reply was meant in such a way even tho it may sound so. And a campfire is not an easy task in any app. And i guess it is for the reason above that none of the FD apps i know provides a lot of presets. Sample scenes are there for all, but hardly any presets. Maybe for shader curves etc. But hardly for sim params.

Well, I do not like to complain but the learing curve involved in Phoenix seems definitely too slope. I stronly believe it could be less steppy if its developers put more effort into proper documentation, more well explained examples, more basic examples covering in details various types of elementary effects rather than complex scenes integrating several issues into one scene what are only briefly explained. I also believe a good bunch of preset params would be of great value for FD beginners.

Documentation still lacks, i agree there. As said i do not believe in presets. A tutorial series explaining the basics of fluid mechanics would be more helpful tho. And i don't think you will have an easy start with presets as even if it worked properly with your scene it will never match exactly what you need. And you won't know which value to change to achieve that i think.

And the community what could at least provide some setup screenshot rather than "shooting" a newbie with a dozen of abstract ideas...

You have been given quite a few very specific things to try and do with specific parameters. e.g. "use cooling", "animate discharge" etc. I wouldn't say that these are abstract ideas.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Ziggi]

OK - it's time to come back to work
OMG - it's already past noon. A real disatser!

[Ivaylo Katev]

ok ziggi, i will make a very fast setup as starting scene for you

[Ivaylo Katev]

ok, this is what i was able to produce for 30 min playing
the tricky part - except the points that i described in the first post, i'm using a conservation method=11 , this method is accessible only by the script. it is shown in the sample "burning plane" to demonstrate convection cells simulation.


the scene is in the attachment

[TSR_trix]

I do feal Ziggi´s pain.
It did take quite long for me also to get familiar enough with Phoenix for have such knowledge base to start create simulations as I would like to have.
I didnt give up and now Phoenix is part of our project pipeline in big way!

Still lots to learn but in this very moment our sim machine is producing some very nice liquid simulations!

[Raven]

Hey Ziggi.

I found these to be most helpful, you get to see what each setting does to same simulation.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD416EC31BE9E2F1D

[Neilg]

- change the transparency to be temperature based, by default it is simple smoke.

- switch off the light emission, otherwise your steam will look like a fire

- arrange the transparency curve to achieve a good appearance of the steam.

I'm trying to go through this to achieve the same effect, and after looking over every setting in the main phoenix object and the phx source I cannot for the life of me figure out where these settings are. I cant see a single box that mentions transparency options, light emission, or a transparency curve.

[Neilg]

Found them...