"watertight" simulation objects

[lander]

I plan to Rebus render this 1250 frame animation so I kind of hope you can solve this in a way that works with that solution. ��

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hmm, which Phoenix version do they have on Rebus?

[lander]

PhoenixFD 3 for 3dsmax. They'll upgrade as soon as you have a hotfix.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ah, okay, this is what I had in mind.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Okay got, the scene and checked it - the issue is the two simulators using both the Ocean render mode - this was each simulator creates its own ocean and the two ocean surfaces are overlayed and produce these z-fight artifacts. In fact this task is at the top of my list right now - making several containers mesh into one single ocean. I hope I'll be able to have a version of that in the nightlies that will be ready for testing soon, but my next week is fully booked with issues and side work, so I'll ping you when there's progress on this.

The workflow so far in this case has been to put all containers in Cap Mesh mode and just one of them in Ocean Mesh, and then compose the result. However, in your case it might be easier to just have one single simulator for both boats, since they are moving close together. Would this work for you as a workaround for now before there is a dedicated solution?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hmm, but even in cap mode for both sims, these artifacts are still visible..

[lander]

Actually, that was my origional setup with one sim. But it had the artifacts already. see post #14.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Affirmative, I spoke too soon. So now I've narrowed it down to the Splash, Bubbles and Cellular render modes - have all the extras turned off and it's still there, so I'd say it's a particle shader thing - it's visible in the alpha and without an ocean underneath as well. A workaround at this time would be rendering in Point mode. Will keep you updated...

[lander]

Not going anywhere

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Yay, fixed! Will run some tests and it will be in Wednesday's nightly. Not sure about Rebus though - I don't think they would agree to install a nightly, but soon we'll release a new patch for Phoenix for Max so maybe they can use that. Meanwhile, if you offset a little the camera, you can workaround the issue - it would happen only when rendering almost top-down or in general looking along the Z, X or Y axes.

[lander]

Great news! Kind of obvious when you say it.
I'll await the nightly. Render times are not that bad so maybe I can handle it locally if Rebus won't install the nightly. At what time do you upload the nightly build?

[lander]

Will I have to run the sim again or is it just the shader?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ah, it's just the shader The nightlies usually come out around 5-6 in the morning CET

[lander]

You have seen the settings that I have. Is there anything you would recommend that I change that would render faster/more predictable simulations/renders?

I set the sun to invisible in hope to get rid of slot of hot pixels.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

The first and most significant speed improvement you could try, if you haven't already, is to increase the light cache speedup until it becomes too ugly to bear

Can you explain more about the hot pixels? Do you have flickering or burned out pixels?