3dsmax PhoenixFD simulation of sea waves is blobby

[Joezeta]

I'm trying to achieve a realistic effect of waves crashing against a cliff wall, but the actual result is like a blob of fluid.

I'm working in meters. I'm using wave force with a PhoenixFDOceanTexture to drive the waves crashing against the cliffs.
In the attached image you can see the desired effect and the actual effect.

Decreasing the resolution of the grid smoothes the blob effect but reduces foam and going higher causes too much foam and too much blobby shapes to appear.
Increasing the wave detail in the PhoenixFDOceanTexture worsen the effect and causes too much foam.
I don't know what to tweak now.

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Check out this video here - https://youtu.be/gE5huS1oajg

It goes over how to create waves wtih Phoenix.

Cheers!

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

I can add to Georgi's suggestion that you make sure the speed of the ocean tex is right - in pure ocean mode with displacement enabled, save a viewport animation and see if the waves are not moving too fast, or the wave force wouldn't be able to perfectly recreate the ocean texture, as it will be trying to catch up to it all the time.

Also, I suggest you approach the setup step by step - in the beginning, set up your waves in pure ocean mode as a displacement. When they are great, turn off the displacement and add the wave force - keep Foam and Splash off at this point - make sure to get the shape and movement of the ocean mesh right first. Finally, when this is done, turn on Splashes and remember that if their Affect Liquid option is On, they will take away liquid when they are born and will add liquid when they splash back in, so they could affect the liquid mesh somewhat.

Cheers!

[Joezeta]

Hey thanks, I've been over that youtube video a lot, but the only significant difference I can spot is the unit setup and the scene scale. I'm interacting with real world scale objects so I've decided to work in meters and to not touch the liquid scene scale. (In the video system unit scale is set to 10 centimeters and the scene scale is set to 10). The speed of the waves looks perfect to me(11 meters per second), as you can see in the attached video (sorry for the quality but I think the forum doesn't allow bigger attachments than 2mb). The liquid container on the left is the simulated one (with 4 millions particles) and the one on the right is the displaced/realtime one.
Despite the size of this gif, you can clearly see the blobs on the left and the correct waves on the right, at the desired speed and scene scale.
I think I might try increasing the steps per frame (now they are set to 1) or the fluid freedom parameter, in the wave force.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ah okay, then keep simplifying and excluding factors - what happens if you hide the interacting geometry? Does the liquid simulated mesh look correct in that case? This would hint if the problem is in the simulator/oceantex/waveforce setup, or is related to how the liquid interacts with the obstacles.

Cheers!

[Joezeta]

I think I've nailed the problem. The wave force was set to 12 and the fluid freedom to 0,95. Somehow it was causing the liquid to move weirdly. Bumping down thoes parameters (especially the fluid freedom) did the trick and now it behaves as expected.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Wohoo! Yes, this is a huge value for the wave force, it would probably be useful with a very low scene scale, but still the result would probably look nothing like the original ocean tex.

Great detective work!