Right now, I have a quad core (core i7-4770K @3-51 ghz ), 32GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 780, Windows 7 Professional.
I’m working on some fluid sims for an independent film right now, and currently it takes about an hour to simulate on a grid size of 256, with only about 73 frames to simulate. In the film, the villain is this sort of inky-smokey monster kind of thing, and originally I had set aside about a week or two at the most to nail-down the fluid parameters so it’s exactly what the director wants. Well, about 2 months and 100-something simulations later, I’m still doing revisions, and getting reallllyyyyy sick of all the waiting.
I have also tried using FumeFX, but – and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, correct me if I’m wrong – FumeFX doesn’t seem to lend itself very well to otherworldly, or unnatural phenomenon. Granted, I didn’t spend too long trying to learn it, but it seems to me it doesn’t have a whole lot of flexibility to make effects other than fire, smoke, explosions, etc.
So I realize I’m probably stuck with slow-old maya fluids for quite a while, and I’m considering maybe upgrading my system to better accommodate this.
I’m curious what kind of rigs everyone else that does serious fluid stuff is running. Would it be more beneficial to me to get an 8 or 12 core processor, or would it be best to just stick with my quad core and don’t waste the money?
Surely there’s a faster way of doing this. I see TONS of fluid effects in movies all the time, and I just think to myself “Jesus… someone spent an absurd amount of time on this”.