smooth sim and ocean transition

[mark_aldred]

What options do I have to smooth the transition between a simulation using WaveForce and a displaced OceanMesh?
I'm on Phoenix FD 4.

Thanks

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to do this.

We have something that looks close, but it's still ugly so you'd have to choose your camera angle.

The idea here is that you have the real simulated waves inside the Simulator and they must not receive any displacement. On the contrary, outside the simulator the displacement must work at full strength. So for this, you could use the Fade Above Vel option and set it to a very low value, which means that the displacement will be suppressed anywhere where there is even just a little velocity - and this means - inside the simulator. For the waves to match, you also need to use the Wave Force in Massive Wave Force mode and use very low or even zero Fluid Freedom value.

However, at the borders of the simulator the height of the waves is still getting zeroed, so the transition is not smooth at all and this is something we have to work on in the plugin...

[mark_aldred]

Thanks. I'll try that.
Unfortunately it's a dome render, so it'll be very difficult to limit what is seen by the camera.

All I need is waves lapping up a gently inclined beach. There's a possibility I'll need to move the camera out and under the sea surface though, so I really need an endless ocean.
Is there any other way I could do that?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, I am looking at a few things that can be done quickly and would improve blending of the simulator and the infinite ocean. Will ping you when there is progress in the nightlies - I hope over the next few days.

[mark_aldred]

Thank you!
I'm still on Phoenix FD 4. I really hope it's possible to include it in there.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

The changes I did so far to the meshing should most likely make it to Phoenix 4 as well, but I also suspect that it would need some changes to the liquid simulation. Will keep you posted.

[mark_aldred]

Great.
Thank you!

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, so the changes will be in tomorrow's Phoenix 4 nightlies here:
https://nightlies.chaos.com/#/phoenix4max/nightly

So you need to use a setup very similar to what I have in the screenshot above:
- Fade Above Vel = 0.0 in the Displacement section, so that the displaced waves are suppressed inside the simulator and only the real ones remain
- Vert. Fade Level disabled

There is also a new option - Ocean Border Fade %, which controls how wide is the smoothed transition zone between the Simulator and the ocean:


Here is what I got with these changes:


I did another change as well which I hope will be useful - I equalized the edges of the simulator in cap mesh mode with those of the ocean mesh mode:


I hope these changes would help you!

Cheers!

[mark_aldred]

Fantastic!! Thank you so much.
I'll try it out tomorrow.

[nidas]

Hey, so the changes will be in tomorrow's Phoenix 4 nightlies here:
https://nightlies.chaos.com/#/phoenix4max/nightly

So you need to use a setup very similar to what I have in the screenshot above:
- Fade Above Vel = 0.0 in the Displacement section, so that the displaced waves are suppressed inside the simulator and only the real ones remain
- Vert. Fade Level disabled

There is also a new option - Ocean Border Fade %, which controls how wide is the smoothed transition zone between the Simulator and the ocean:


Here is what I got with these changes:


I did another change as well which I hope will be useful - I equalized the edges of the simulator in cap mesh mode with those of the ocean mesh mode:


I hope these changes would help you!

Cheers!

Is this available in Maya Phoenix.. I have 5.01 but can´t see any border fade option

[slavina.nikolova]

Hey,

The Ocean Border Fade % option should be located in the Phoenix Simulator -> Rendering -> Mesh rollout.

Hope this helps!

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Is this available in Maya Phoenix.. I have 5.01 but can´t see any border fade option

Hey, this option was not available in 5.01. Today we just released Phoenix 5 10 and the option is already there. You can get it at download.chaos.com.

Cheers!

[nidas]

Hey, this option was not available in 5.01. Today we just released Phoenix 5 10 and the option is already there. You can get it at download.chaos.com.

Cheers!

Thank you - downloaded - tested and its working great!

[david_slachta]

Hi,

I'm sorry to revive an old thread, but I'm having trouble matching the simulator waves and the outside ocean as per the instructions above.

In my case, the simulated waves don't match the displaced ones at all. The simulated ones look quite lumpy and not very realistic. You can check the images below for comparison.

I used the Wave Force with Fluid Freedom of 0.0 and I've set the Fade Above Velocity to 0.0 as well. It seems to do what it's supposed to do (meaning the displacement is showing up only outside of the simulator, and the WaveForce is making waves inside the simulator), but the simulated waves don't really match the displaced one and the difference is quite visible in the render as well. The simulator is 300 meters in length and contains about 200 milion voxels and the Wind speed of the OceanTex is 11 meters.

Am I doing something wrong?

EDIT: Actually, I stand corrected, in the render there is not as much difference as I can see in the viewport, so the waves actually match quite nice. I attached a 3rd image for reference. However, now I have a problem that there's some sort of a "canyon" forming behind the moving object and the fluid doesn't seem to be splashing much at all. Is it because the Fluid Freedom set to 0.0?

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Just a note that the teapot is not the best geometry to test this with as it is an open geometry by default and such geometry can cause issues during simulation.
It's best to try with something other geometry or close the open edges of the teapot (if teapot is needed in this case).

As for the canyon and the liquid not splashing - you may want to reduce the Scene scale a few times (also make sure the Viscosity and the Surface tension options are both set to 0).