Maya Fluids vs Real Flow

[Cheesestraws]

Maya Fluids != nParticles.

Maya's fluids are for simulating gaseous phenomenon, they are not really suited to liquid simulations.

nParticles are like Maya's normal particles, they are in fact derived from them, they happen to have some fluid simulation parameters. But if you are going to be doing lots of liquid simulations then Realflow is your best bet out of all commercial software.

[cgbeige]

I use both and Realflow is amazing for viscous fluids/water,etc. The results are extremely convincing once learn the ins and outs of good meshing/particle density vs. resolution, etc. It's not at all suited to things like sand that are not viscous though so I use Maya for that.

but you need a renderer to deal with Realflow's stuff and a knowledge of Maya's particles is important for doing stuff like foam:

http://3eige.com/cgtalk/realwavetest3-wavecollideref.jpg

That's a Realflow particle group with Maya software particles.

Maya 2009 added some globby fluids but I call it the tapioca simulator since nothing looks good like Realflow's meshes, which factor in a lot more information like surface tension and speed/direction of individual particles.

[Bonedaddy]

The two are very dissimilar.

Maya Fluids are a grid-based solver, working off of Navier-Stokes equations, good for simulating gaseous fluids.

RealFlow is an SPH solver, which is good for simulating liquids.

Maya nParticles now also contains an SPH solver, although it is not as robust as RealFlow's.

Finally, RealFlow's mesher is considerably better than Maya's, at least in their current states. Having seen a bit of the next versions of both programs, I think it is likely to stay that way.

Houdini's mesher is also quite usable, and I think more flexible than Maya or RealFlow's.

[VTeixeira]

Great post everyone, thanks a lot to all for your time.
I just have another question, a very important one.
So after all set and done the best way to achieve realistic results with Real Flow is to render it on Maya? Right?
My objective will be to combine it with live action scenes.
These questions are for my Dissertation and Final Project, Master Degree, that I´m finishing.
There is one great work that really inspires me.
Steel Life from Mathieu Gerrard.

[Aikiman]

When I used Realflow last in didnt have a renderer so "yes", export your particles/mesh from RF into Maya then render.

[VTeixeira]

Thanks for the advice

[cgbeige]

you get the plug-ins here:

http://www.realflow.com/plugins.htm

[brjig]

I use both and Realflow is amazing for viscous fluids/water,etc. The results are extremely convincing once learn the ins and outs of good meshing/particle density vs. resolution, etc. It's not at all suited to things like sand that are not viscous though so I use Maya for that.

but you need a renderer to deal with Realflow's stuff and a knowledge of Maya's particles is important for doing stuff like foam:

http://3eige.com/cgtalk/realwavetest3-wavecollideref.jpg

That's a Realflow particle group with Maya software particles.

Maya 2009 added some globby fluids but I call it the tapioca simulator since nothing looks good like Realflow's meshes, which factor in a lot more information like surface tension and speed/direction of individual particles.



I would love to know how you achieved that effect, I have been trying for weeks to create a waterfall.
Everything from multiple particles to displacement maps and all that. And nothing comes close to that.

[cgbeige]

I basically drove a single square emitter over a cliff polygon shape in Realflow and then used a cloud particle with very basic settings in Maya. The real work is done by Realflow since it does more realistic water handling. If you have RF, I can post the source doc.

But this is better:

http://vimeo.com/5120756

There's a thread in here that I can't find that has the Maya doc linked.

[brjig]

I do have realflow, soo it would be great if you can send me the source doc, and take a look at it.

ill try to find that doc too. thanks for letting me know.

[cgbeige]

ok, but I don't know if the internets can handle it (it's 15,000 bytes!):

http://www.3eige.com/cgtalk/dualwavetest.zip

It was just a test so it doesn't look the greatest. I'd break the emitter up a little and add a turbulence field.

[Bonedaddy]

You can render RF in pretty much anything. If you have access to Houdini, you can do a lot more with the particle renders in Houdini's Mantra than you can do in Maya with mental ray. Renderman is also a good choice.

For the waterfall, I'd recommend a couple passes:

1) Meshed-out base water pass
2) Isolated particles (based off of pressure or vorticity or something), meshed as tiny blobs, to give a nice specular shimmer
3) Large sheets of foam particles living on top of the water pass (non-meshed)
4) Mist particles coming off the waterfall (non-meshed)

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