Tyre burnout sim- urgent help needed

[Bertjenkins]

Hi,

I haven't used phoenix FD for a while and am trying to use it on a project for a quick, basic, tyre burn smoke effect.

I'm following a max tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM46wtfPynk) but i'm using phoenix fd for maya (3.1)
The effect is a close up of the wheel with the tyre spinning very fast and the smoke spinning around with the wheel. I have a smoke emitter cube with the smoke set to volume inject and then another source (spinning cylinder) with the wheel rotating using 'motion velocity' ticked. However i am facing two main problems:

1. I want to run the sim, then adjust, then run it again. Every time i start again it runs the same sim. If i hit delete- IT DOES NOT DELETE! The sim just jumps to the first frame of the last sim. This is soooo annoying. How do i stop this? Ideally i don't want to cache at all, i just want a fresh sim every time i start from the beginning, like with maya ncloth etc.
2. The motion velocity source doesn't seem to be effecting anything at all. How do i check if it's actually having an effect on the sim? I want the rotating tyre to spin the smoke around, i have a spinning wheel with motion velocity set to 1 and it doesn't seem to have an effect.
3. If i change the scene scale between metres, centimetres etc this seems to have no effect whatsoever also. Is there a reason why this is? Maybe it's because i'm still running the old sim, I can't tell because I CANT DELETE IT!

sorry for the CAPS folks, you can see I'm on a deadline!

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Bertjenkins]

Update: Looking much better now! Adjusting the settings for dissipation, cell size and density vastly improved things. Plus motion velocity increased a lot seemed to really help. Panic over! But i do find the sim deleting very annoying. Every time i run the sim i have to click on the the sim object, hit stop, hit stop again, then hit delete, then stop again to make sure it;'s deleted. Is there an easier way of working?

[Bertjenkins]

Another thing I'm finding is the viewport preview disappears if you get too close to the bounding box of the simulator. Is there a way around this?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, what you describe about deleting should.not be working like this at all. Does the same happen with a brand new scene as well, or is it specific just to the scene you're working with? Can you record a video of how you make this happen?

Also, are you sure you are using the latest Phoenix 4.30? The viewport thing you describe was fixed a few versions back, so now the camera can go into the gpu preview.

Jesse's tutorial is based on one of our free example scenes, which you can find here of you need a working setup to compare with: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/pages/vi...ageId=47532064

Cheers!

[Bertjenkins]

Wow thanks Svetlin. V useful. Perhaps i should upgrade and see if that fixes anything. But now my license has died! It says 'there are no available license of this type on the chaos group license server'
It was working fine yesterday. I purchased through blue gfx
Aaaargh!

[Bertjenkins]

Phew. Now the license works. I have a feeling i really need to upgrade. I have a dongle license. If i check http://localhost:30304 the license shows up but on the chaos group site the dongle is not there. What do i do to upgrade the dongle to 4.3? Or if not is there a higher version than 3.10.00? I'm not sure i'm ready for an online license- these things always happen to me on a sunday!

Thanks

[Bertjenkins]

I have just found version 31400 on the chaos group site. I have downloaded the maya 2019 version but there is no installer?
Just various folders. Do i have to copy and paste these all individually into new folders in the maya 2019 directories? Would really help if there was an installation app.

[Bertjenkins]

The 2018 version seems to be working (installs from an exe) but it would be nice to have it in Maya 2019. I will try to see if this fixes the various issues.

[Bertjenkins]

I now have it set up in maya 2019 (The only way i could do it was to install a vray next trial license). I think it solved the sim delete issue. However the gpu preview issue is still there. Most of the shot is fine but there is an annoying glitch occasionally on random frames like a clipping plane issue. Is there any workaround for this?
I really need it to work for client previews.

[Bertjenkins]

Sorry forgot to mention, the camera is not intersecting the box, in fact it is quite far away from the sim grid

[Bertjenkins]

If i move the camera around the scene, i get weird artifact lines every so- often on the smoke, if i go too close to it.

[Bertjenkins]

Are the lines fixed in 4.3? I am using 3.14 and they are definitely still there. Can I upgrade from 3.14 to 4.3? I don't need vray just Pheonix for Maya upgrade. The upgrade i not available on the chaos site. However i don't want to upgrade if the lines are still there on the gpu previews.

[Bertjenkins]

Just installed the 4.3 trial. There are still lines across the smoke on 4.3. When you move the camera close to the smoke there are artifacts on the gpu preview. I need the GPU preview to work for the project I'm working on.
Sorry for all the posts on a sunday but I desperately need this to work

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey,

I see you are trying a lot of things, and you don't always mention what you did after you had an issue, so let me drop in on some of the things I recognize:

1. If your license is not working:
- Check here in case it's a known issue in the licensing: https://status.chaos.com/
-Make sure you are using the LATEST Chaos license server: https://download.chaosgroup.com/?platform=47&product=48

2. Phoenix 4 is a new MAJOR version, after Phoenix 3. As with all Chaos products, going from Phoenix 3 to Phoenix 4 is a paid upgrade. All dot updates are free, e.g. going from Phoenix 3.11 to 3.12, 3.14, etc., or from 4.0 to 4.20 or the latest 4.30.

3. There are 3 types of Chaos licenses - perpetual, annual or monthly; If you have a perpetual license, the upgrade from 3 to 4 is discounted. If you wanna use annual or monthly, they don't require an upgrade - you just get access to all versions and you can use whichever you want, including 3 and 4. On the Chaos website, here are the prices: https://www.chaosgroup.com/phoenix-fd/maya#pricing

4. Maybe you downloaded a ZIP installer - this is intended for studios who just replace their plugins. Make sure to download the installer that does not have (ZIP) in its name:


4. If the lines you see are still there in 4.30, then it's still something that we need to fix. I will note this just in case - what you see in the viewport is the GPU preview - it has nothing to do with rendering so your rendered image will not have such lines. It will be best if we can fix it anyway, but I need some specific info, so please at least give me a screenshot of how it looks or we are just shooting in the dark here.

5. Do you still get the issue where you were deleting the caches? A wild guess could be that something is wrong with the Input or Output rollout paths, so make sure to reset them to defaults from the '...' menu to the right. If this does not help, please mention if a new scene has the same issue and did not provide the scene or the steps or video, so if possible, please share any of these so I would be able to understand what's going on.

Cheers!

[Bertjenkins]

Thanks Svetlin, your reply is much appreciated!
Sorry I didn't mention i have a perpetual dongle license. I have no problem with paying for the upgrade, that's not the issue- I can't wait to try out the new version! but I just couldn't find anywhere to do it. On the site there doesn't seem to be a section for upgrades, only to buy a new perpetual license. In the past i've just upgraded. I guess i should contact the reseller?
As for the caches, I believe the issue was that the sim was still going in the background, so i was trying to delete it whilst it hadn't fully stopped simming. I guess on bigger sims you have to wait longer for it to stop fully before deleting the cache. I much prefer the phoenix simming method to bifrost by the way. It's working a bit better now, but still occasionally you stop, delete the sim and then it jumps forward quite a few frames. I guess to where the sim is still simming in the background. It would be nice if you didn't have to select the sim before hitting delete.
As for the gpu preview, see the stills below. Wide shots are fine, but when you rotate around and slightly move into the smoke you get these lines. This is on 4.3. I've tried to adjust the camera's clipping planes but it doesn't seem to work. It's not other objects intersecting the smoke because the lines are still there if i hide all other objects. I realize this is only on the preview but unfortunately i need to show the playblast to the client as a test....