PhoenixFD Active bodies and MassFX Rigid Bodies

[miclicav]

Hi all,
I'm trying to figure out if I can have ice fall into a grid then have a liquid pour over it and raise them over time with the pouring kind of like this:
https://vimeo.com/163192717

I'm getting close, but the ice is flying out of the liquid grid when the liquid comes into contact with it. I've tried creating a MassFX Rigid body around it to compensate for this, but they are moving through it as well. Does anyone know of an example of something similar they might point me to? I know I'm missing something in the order of operations here, I just don't know what.

Here's a link to my source file:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hE...KUxOwpaYNnaeBn

Thank you!

[slavina.nikolova]

Hey,

Thanks a lot for the scene! I did a new simplified scene with a few changes:

1. Removed the MassFX Rigid body modifier, since the Active Bodies' options will give you all the needed settings for this simulation.

2. Enabled the Initial Liquid Fill from the Dynamics rollout and set it to 25. That will save you simulation time, because you are not going to wait the simulator to fill and will give you some interesting movements of the fluid.

3. Set the "Specify Density" of the Active Body to 725. The density of the box should be smaller that the water one, that way the active body's clone will emerge. To tweak the Density of the Active Body, right mouse button click on the original object and bring up the Phoenix FD Properties.

4. Animated the Active Body's original to fall till reaches the bottom of the Simulator. The animation is made by adding a keyframes to the box.

5. Animated the "Original Animation Influence" of the Active Body - it's set to 0.7 till the body reaches the bottom of the simulator and after that is set to 0, that way the fluid will affect the body and it could emerge. That option is located in the Phoenix FD properties menu as well.


Here you can find information about setting up a scene with Active Bodies: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...e+Bodies+Guide.


In addition, is important to mention that at this point Active Bodies still don't interact with one another. It's in our to do list and it's coming.


Hope that will help you!

[miclicav]

Hi slavina,
I really appreciate you taking the time to make a file on your end. Unfortunately without multiple active bodies reacting to one another, I'm not going to be able to achieve the result our client is aiming for. Even the single block of ice in your file is floating out of the container at around 165 frames. This is a really frustrating day and a big part of me wishes we could get our money back. However, we'll hold out and see what the announcements regarding active bodies are in the webinar for Phoenix FD 4 on the 11th.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey,

I can tell you more about it without having to wait for the webinar - in 4.0 we had just the first iteration of Active Bodies, so people who want to simulate floating vessels or small floating debris can get their work done. Mutual interaction between the active bodies will be our next step, and as soon as we have something in the nightly builds, we will ping you so you can try it out (the nightlies are available for everyone). It will very likely be more than a month from now though.

We also have to make sure this is well understood since having warnings about it in the online documentation and the changelog seems to not be enough. May I ask if something also led you to believe there is any connection between Phoenix and MassFX, or is it just a method you decided to try?

Cheers!

[miclicav]

No,
At this point, we've reached out to two industry pro's who've been saying we can fake it with Tyflow but it won't look realistic. My client has ridiculously high standards and it's almost as if I would need a team who knew Houdini in order to achieve the result we're going for. However, it looks as if Thinking Particles can perhaps pull it off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8eV...ature=youtu.be

It's just that I lose face with the company by having them invest in software that doesn't even do what they need it to.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hmm, this doesn't help me understand why things happened this way and how we can prevent this in the future though...

I often link to this page here in the forums - it is important info that everyone should go through carefully - it's the first page on the docs site: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...+in+a+Nutshell
There are also warnings about the active bodies in the 4.0 changelog https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/PHX4MAX/4.00.00
... and we've changed the color of the warning in the Active Body guide so hopefully it would not be skipped: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...e+Bodies+Guide
In retrospect, another thing is that you could grab a 30-day trial which has no restrictions and try out first hand if Phoenix would be fit for the job before buying.

Right now I think the best you could do would be to contact sales at chaosgroup dot com and they would help find the best solution. Please drop them a mail right away if you don't think Phoenix would be fit for your tasks.

Cheers!