render particles as geometry

[Jassir]

we need to animate a liquid with solid objects floating around in it (like some kind of debris). We thought it should be possible using phoenix for the liquid and drag particles for the debris. But somehow we were not able to render the drag particles as geometry. The only way we could render those was by using the phoenix foam tool, which only allows foam, splash and dots but no instanced geometry.

Is there another way to achieve this effect? Maybe with the phoenix tools for particle flow?

In the breakdown of this video you can see some green Boxes that follow the movement of the water. How were these simulated? Is this a technique we could use?

[Ivaylo Katev]

you can use the metaball object included in vray
if you have official phoenix it's a bit tricky to select it in the metaball particle group list, but is not impossible, you have to select it by the "select by name" tool of max, because the object representing the particles is hidden and can't be picked directly. but in the nightly phoenix if you pick the entire simulator it represents all the particle groups and you can pick it directly.

[Jassir]

Thanks for the reply. I tried your suggestion. We use the regular build. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the hidden object you mentioned. Do I have to know the exact name of it?
Attached the hierarchy of my test scene and the selection window after pressing "add" in the metaball object.

[Jassir]

Apart from my problem with finding the hidden object. Using this approach would only serve me if I wanted to render some bloobs in the water but I couldn't use instanced geometry (rocks/twigs), could I?

[Ivaylo Katev]

yes, as i mentioned it's a bit tricky
the hidden object is produced on demand, and this happens when you create PHXFoam object and select the desired particle group in it. once the particle group object is created, you can delete the PHXFoam.
then you have to enable "display hidden objects" in the picker, and this should be enough.
p.s. sorry about that inconvenience, we didn't think that our particle groups will be used in 3rd part plugins, actually its a kind of very happy coincidence that it is possible at all

[Jassir]

thanks for your help. It is working now.