will be any New update for Phoenix FD ?

[lzmihich]

Vray went 3.0 some time ago.
I was really excited when new Ocean properties were announced, I was the first one to post a simulation.
It's been almost an year since I've asked the last time.
I got the reply , telling How slow can be the tests etc...
What bothers me, is that the ocean implementations are buggy with ugly boxes
displaying in the ocean surface.no tech language here sorry, it is what it is.
This forum is all dedicated to technicalities, programmers language, on How to use what we have now, which is clearly not good enough.
I am aware that I was told in this same forum , Simplification for the user was the Goal , a long time ago !!!
But the worst , was when I asked about tutorials,as they are non existent , (and please don't tell me about the pre -historic ones).
What about the obvious ones that that should come with the Ocean release ?
I got the reply , making a promisse, that the tutorials, They would be taken care off, together with the new release
correcting the bugs.I could not be more unhappy ,and I sincerely think that Phoenix is stuck, very sad.
Shame on you.

[jstrob]

What ugly boxes are your talking about?
As for tutorials, I think that sample scene are almost as good as tutorials and there are a few one with which we can learn a lot.

[lzmihich]

Please , if you don't need tutorials or anything else,just go work with Phoenix , let others be !
You are welcome, but I really need replies from Phoenix developers.
if you haven't noticed the box and is curious, click the image.

[waaazoo]

Hi, I don't know why you are so angry... I understand you are upset, but generally we always get help from Chaos Group.
As far as I know, I had this box appearing only when my grid was to small (not the definition, the size itself around the simulation), or a bad setting between initial fill up and ocean mesh :/
I am also struggling with settings to find out a good ocean setup, but for now I find it really promising and most of all, I think that if I can't get exactly what I want for now it's mostly because I don't understand all settings completely.... but I'm just new to it.
As far as for tutorials, yes, they are needed and would be welcome, but can also do without it with all the example scenes, testing around and comparing the settings. You will never get a tutorial that matches exactly your needs anyway...
My five cents.

[jstrob]

Yes sure it's always easier with turorials when the author add a few tips here and there that we can't understand by just looking at some scene.

I judt didi a splash in the ocean test and I didn't get the box problem. You can see it here: http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...omme-%E0-lamer!

But please don't be discouraged, it's never easy to do simulation stuff and if it was really easy, everybody would be doing it and you would maybe have na hard time finding a job (like all those 3d artists in LA who are missing the time when they were the only ones in the world to own a computer and a 3D animation package.) ! I understand it is very complicated to develop such software and with competition like real flow getting better all the time and project Bifrost (Naiad) coming in maya and maybe 3ds max this monday, Chaosgroup must put all their efforts deveolopping Phoenix as fast as possible. Imagine if Bifrost come in max and maya and is better than Phoenix, who will pay to buy phoenix? Imagine if Scanline VFX starts marketing their simulation software tomorrow?

I think we always get a lot of support from chaosgroup here contrary to some other software company you rarely have the opportunity to talk directly to the programmer and get answer by the creator himself.

[lzmihich]

Yes I am upset, but no one understands Why ? How frustrating.
You think what ? That Phoenix FD2.1 is running like a Ferrari ? enjoy!.
I think that trying to make an Ocean simulation to work with no problems
is a living Hell,I really gave up long ago, and the developers know the problems and What Iam talking about.
They do !
Also they promissed a new version and tutorials, and of course your logic makes me even more upset :

"...You will never get a tutorial that matches exactly your needs anyway"

How philosophic, I agree , LET's NOT HAVE TUTORIALS AT ALL.
Is Cantasia giving Siphillis to Chaos team ?They are busy for eternity and can't record a simple vídeo ?
I wanna engage in the cinical department of Chaos Phoenix developers .
Hope that this made u laugh.I am already laughing.

[Ivaylo Katev]

What bothers me, is that the ocean implementations are buggy with ugly boxes
displaying in the ocean surface.

i agree with you, phoenix 2.1 was released with a lot of new features that were not polished, one month later we have released 2.11 with hot fixes for the most important bugs.
in 2.2 we have almost no new features, only fixes and improvements of the existing ones. for example the holes near to the screen border were fixed just few weeks ago, and there are still rare cases that i'm investigating right now.
so, don't blame the tutorials, there were some problems with them, but the main reason for the long pause is actually the polishing oh the product. 2.2 is not too late, actually 2.1 was to early.

[waaazoo]

lzmihich, I never said that tutorials are not useful, but having a tutorial is not just all. You will always have to get used to the parameters and get a feeling of it, and that is just done by testing around. You already have a lot of info in the forum and new questions are mostly addressed by the team here.
You will also always have to find workarounds, the big deal is just to know what doesn't work like a charm, and what can I do to find a workaround. It's like the bevel tool in Maya that is sometimes behaving like sh*** (and that for years), but when you know it, you use it differently.
I won't argue with you... someone who is upset, will just want to spit around and will stay upset.

regards,

olivier

[fingerindustries]

I've been using Phoenix for about 2 months now. We bought it because we had a job that had water and needed foam and couldn't be achieved any other way.

While I don't particularly agree with the OP about Phoenix being stuck, I do think that as a "production ready" plugin it needs to be much more accessible to beginners. We're a small studio with no technical director or FX experienced staff. I'm a 3D modeller who was tasked with becoming an FX artist for 2 months. This has proven very challenging and has pushed me far outside of my usual job role. One of the major problems I've has is the lack of solid, official tutorials for new users.

As the job is coming to an end I still feel like I have no idea how to get predictable results with Phoenix. The forum is great, (if a bit quiet and slow) and getting responses from the developers is a real positive - something that Chaos Group has always excelled at. The Phoenix help file is slightly limited though, and could do with taking things right back to basics for users like myself who have no experience in this field.

The latest release of V-ray is really great and packed with features and a shiny new help document that links directly from the render settings window. I think the OP might just be wondering when Phoenix may be getting a similar treatment.

[waaazoo]

here is a very quick test

http://youtu.be/Z1wDf4Tr9Po

I know splashes are too big, foam is not enough visible, and movement of tube is ugly (all done in a few minutes), but there is no ugly box. On borders, it's a know bug, yes, but it's easy to find a workaround.

[Paul Oblomov]

Hm. What was the task, you guys want to achieve ? What kind of tutorials u need ? There's lots of scenes packed with phx. Almost everything u need.

[Ivaylo Katev]

here is a very quick test

http://youtu.be/Z1wDf4Tr9Po

I know splashes are too big, foam is not enough visible, and movement of tube is ugly (all done in a few minutes), but there is no ugly box. On borders, it's a know bug, yes, but it's easy to find a workaround.

thanks for the good words, but the "ugly box" problem is (rather was) real , it happens when the grid resolution is relatively low and the cell size is more than one pixel over the screen. the problem occurs because the displacement have fine details that are missing in the grid, but are visible in the surrounding ocean. now this is not a problem, the grid is also subdivided until small enough triangles are reached.

[TSR_trix]

Ive been using Phoenix now from the version 1.0 and I totally understand lzmihich´s frustration.
Tutorials are needed, because its natural to explain at the same time why to use different features and values, cause these are impossible to cover in even very detailed documentation.

So many times I have this "OOooh thats what it does!" effect when watching tutorials. Svetlins fire/smoke tutorials are very good example.

But I cant be more pointing that also what makes the difference, is to have as much as possible detailed documentation with good examples (same mantra from me every time sorry).
What I mean "with crop you can crop" is useless. Things are so complicated within simulator that every feature deserves to have own page with for example these gif animations.

Anyway, Im so happy we have Phoenix. Without it, I wouldnt got this experience with fire/smoke AND liquid simulations!
When particle based simulation and rigid body sim is added to Phoenix, its gonna kick Autodesk ripped off Naiads ass!

[lzmihich]

Ivaylo the long pause was really long, However,I am keeping my hopes high .