How to render Phoenix FD Foam and Splashes?
In Corona Renderer 6 and newer it is possible to render Phoenix FD Foam and Splashes effects. This was not possible in the older versions of Corona Renderer.
Generally, a simulation created with Phoenix FD with Foam and/or Splashes effects enabled will render as expected. You can then further tweak the parameters of the simulation and the Foam and Splashes shaders.
Most features are supported, with a few minor exceptions, which were too physically incorrect to include them in Corona, or were too complex to implement. For a list of unsupported features, see: Phoenix FD Foam rendering - Known bugs and limitations
Quick setup guide
If you are not familiar with Phoenix FD, the best idea would be to check its official documentation:
https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/PHX4MAX/Phoenix+FD+for+3ds+Max+Help
Most of the examples and features described there can be used with Corona Renderer.
Requirements:
- Corona Renderer 6 or newer
- Phoenix FD 4.10.02 or newer
- Add a Phoenix FD Liquid Source and a Liquid Simulator (in our case, a circle for the liquid source that will shoot the water upwards like a fountain, and a large enough simulator to contain it).
- Make sure that Foam and / or Splashes are enabled in your simulator object.
- (Optionally) Scroll down to the Output rollout of your liquid simulator and enable some additional channels (e.g. you may need the Velocity channel to get correct motion blur).
- Start your simulation and wait for it to compute.
- If you render your simulation at this point, you should already see the liquid mesh, foam, and splashes.
- Apply a refractive material to your liquid mesh (in this case we will slightly color the water material to make it easier to distinguish from the Foam and Splashes shaders).
- Once the calculation is finished, and your water material is set up, you can select the Foam and Splashes shader objects and tweak their parameters (e.g. you can make the bubbles larger or smaller, increase or decrease their count, change IOR, etc).
- As the last, optional steps, you can:
- Create a Corona Camera and enable motion blur in its settings - this will greatly increase the realism of Foam and Splashes.
- Enable caustics in the liquid material and in Render Setup > Performance - this will additionally improve the realism of your scene.
After following the above mini-tutorial, you should end up with a result similar to this one:
See also: