Phoenix FD Costings

[iCreate]

Hi all.

I'm trying to cost up possibly getting Phoenix FD for the office. But need to know more before I go to my boss about this.

Phoenix FD is £300/yr

I presume that's only 1 workstation license.

What about rendering? Do I need to purchase render nodes or do those come with the workstation license?

We have 8 render systems.

We have Vray but don't use it anymore and use Corona. Other than foam, which will be supported in the next version of Corona, has anyone experienced any other issues with Phoenix & Corona?



Thanks

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, rendering is free. Check this page out - it covers all the basics related to licensing and interoperability with other renderers and plugins https://docs.chaosgroup.com/m/mobile...#page/47533983

Cheers!

[iCreate]

Hi Svetlin.

Sorry for not replying sooner

I'm back to looking into Phoenix. I think I'm confused but I'm not sure

I emailed Chaos the same day as posting this topic to cover all bases.

Here's the reply:

Yes, this is the cost for one machine (you can use it from multiple machines, just not at the same time).

When it comes to rendering you will need V-Ray Render nodes (they can render scenes with PhoenixFD simulation also).


If you purchase 1 V-Ray workstation license it comes with 1 x Interface and 1x Render node license

If you have 8 machines that you only want to use as render slaves (and render simultaneously) then you need to purchase 1 Render node license for each machine.

Thank you!


Best Regards,
Alexander Milanov

Ummmmmmmmmm

This has confused me because as you (and the document) say, rendering is free and doesn't require a license. Unless I'm misunderstanding things; Alexander is saying we'd need to spend £300/yr for 1x PhoenixFD & £1030 for 10 Vray render nodes (even though we're using Corona)

Or.... Is he talking about Phoenix FD simulation nodes?

=============

One more question if that's ok? I need to know as much as I can before I talk to my boss.

As I said before - We have (or used to have Vray) - When setting up systems I always install it just in case. However, I just logged onto our Chaos account and it says we have no active products.

Is PhoenixFD separate from Vray if we're using Corona. Do we need Vray render nodes?


Thanks again,

Sean

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Phoenix, V-Ray and Corona are separate products and each one requires a different license.

When Phoenix is used locally it requires 1 GUI license and 1 simulation license. The combination of 1 GUI and 1 Simulation license is referred to as a Workstation license and is the minimum you need to be able to use Phoenix FD.
You can use additional Phoenix Simulation licenses which can be used to run simulations through managers such as Backburner or Deadline on remote machines. If you won't simulate on more than 1 machine you don't need more than 1 simulation license. Note that distributed simulations in which different parts of the same simulation are calculated simultaneously across several machines are currently not implemented. You can use the Simulation licenses to run simulations on separate machines without accessing the user interface and without engaging a GUI license.

While rendering, Phoenix won't require a license (Svetlin meant this when he said that rendering is free), but V-Ray or Corona will use a license.
You just need Phoenix FD installed on the machine which will render the data.

If you're using Corona, there is no need to get V-Ray. I guess there was a misunderstanding and Alexander thought you were using V-Ray.

To recap if you want to sim with Phoenix on 1 machine and render on all machines you will need:

1 Phoenix Workstation license, 1 Corona workstation license and 1 Corona render node license for each machine you wish to use as a render slave.

As for pricing and additional license help send an additional mail to the support mail and they will help you out.

Cheers!

[iCreate]

Hi. Thanks for the fast reply.

Sorry about this. To clarify on your clarifications......

We have Corona and all our render systems have it installed and render fine.

If we purchase 1 PhoenixFD license & install it on all systems, all systems will be able to render a scene where PhoenixFD is being used as it doesn't require a render node license.

However, only 1 system can use PhoenixFD at any one time because we only have 1 floating license.

If we get 2 licenses, 2 people can use it at the same time.

----------------------------

If we do only get one license, what are the steps for someone else to use it on another system? Does the scene need to be closed down on System A for it to be used on System B?

Or does the license need to be deactivated or a PhoenixFD node not be used for x minutes?

Thanks again.

And sorry about all the questions.

[georgi.zhekov]

Phoenix is using the Chaos License Server - https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...rver+Interface

If you have only 1 license and a second person wants to use the license, the license needs to be released first. The easiest way to do that is close the scene and restart Max on the first machine and then use Phoenix on the second machine.

[JezUK]

Hey,
Note that distributed simulations in which different parts of the same simulation are calculated simultaneously across several machines are currently not implemented.

Sorry to jump in here, please excuse me, but do you have any ideas when this will be implemented ? Maybe Phoenix 5 ?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

From our tests distributed simulations yield a very small speedup - with fluids in general the situation is a lot different than rendering, so distributed sims are far from a silver bullet. This is why I am looking for optimizing the simulation running on one machine because there is a lot we can still do for that case.

Cheers!