PhysX Fluid Simulation in Softimage ICE

[Mr.Core]

I am not sure but probably ( if I understand right about the vorticity ) that can help.

[druitre]

Hello Mr Core, I've been trying to get something out of your vorticity setup but nothing so far. The strength when used as input on a gradient gives me random animated noise, the axis I don't know how to connect to a gradient. How would you set this up?

On another note: I'm on a machine with a GTX 560 Ti, with 2Gb ram. Yet I can't get the Max Particles Number setting past 2000000, if I set it any higher I get a "GPU particle system creation failed. Falling back to CPU implementation" warning. (This happens in any scene, the most basic setup with just an emitter and Physx connected will do similar)

Looking in GPU-Z monitor, I can see @ 2000000 particles it's only using 803 Mb, if I raise the max Number it goes up and right away the sim fails.

The computer used to have a GTX 270 with 830 Mb, and it could handle the exact same maximum.

On my other machine, with a GTX 460 with 1 Gb, I get exactly the same max number setting.

Is there some limit set for the compound or Softimage? Or is it a Physx limitation?

[edit: this is the message from the script editor:
// ERROR : Failed to allocate pinned memory.
// ERROR : GPU particle system creation failed. Falling back to CPU implementation.]

[Mr.Core]

Hi,
I have attached a scene with vorticity setup ( or something similar - I am not sure what is it exactly ). The particles color changes from black to white on high angular velocity values.
Regard to 2M - This is perhaps physx limitation, at least personally I have no any restrictions here, I'll ask about that.
Also, the latest physx beta ( px 3.2 beta 3 ) brings support for actual shape for dynamic obstacels so I'll add it soon

[druitre]

Hi Mr Core! What version are you on? I'm on 2012 SAP, I get a message I need a newer version to open your sene.

[PeterCGS]

Any chance of using a implicit cube for the Fluid Box? Im doing a waterslide test, and want the simulation to take place around the character going down the slide, but the waterslide is huge (Animated implicit cube as Fluid box would be suuper ..)

/Regards Peter K

[Mr.Core]

I am sorry, corrected now

>>Any chance of using a implicit cube for the Fluid Box?
You can simply bind a hidden geometric cube to implicit one Its possible of course but doesnt make any sense I guess, very unusual thing

[PeterCGS]

Well, I guess I dont fully understand your fluid box implementation.. Usually (Mooootzooooid hehe) you define a area where the simulation take place.. But for PhysX it doesnt seem to matter how small or big the Fluid box is, it seems to simulate anyway?

Another thing.. Substeps only seem to impact CPU rendering.. When doing higher substep simulation on the GPU, the simulation takes longer time but its always looking the same (And the substep seems to correspond to a high CPU number, because its always very stable on the CPU).. So doing GPU substep 0, goes super fast, and looks super nice! Great project Mr. Core!

Ooh and another thing.. Is there anyway to define the collision distance for collision objects? My collision seems to happen quite far away from the actual polynormal...

[Mr.Core]

>>Usually (Mooootzooooid hehe) you define a area where the simulation take place..
Here is different approach, like Lagoa - physx doesnt require any containers. Honestly saying, in GPU mode ( due to memory restrictions on videocards ) there is invisible container defined by Approximate Fluid BBox Length parameter , I cant say in which way it is centered because I cant see px sources but you could consider something like boxcenter = first emit position. There is relation ship between bbox length and sim speed, less length = higher speed, but once particle will reach border of box - it will be dropped ( looks as fall down through all objects in the scene )

>>Is there anyway to define the collision distance for collision objects?
Try to manually change these parameters inside of the central compound:
http://clip2net.com/s/1LFrP

[PeterCGS]

Thanks a bunch for the explanation!! Im very very excited about your fluid simulation!

[Mr.Core]

Thanks, but its not mine, its physx

[PeterCGS]

Well, you know what I mean ;) I wil play with this baby for two-three weeks now. And post test meanwhile

[PeterCGS]

Uhm.. Im doing different water scenes. So I created one model, which each contains some objects and a point cloud. Now I get a error message trying to run more than one pointcloud ice simulation, which is fine. But usually hiding the "inactive" pointclouds is enough (or disable the ICEtree) to stop them running, but I still get a "not more than one instance is allowed" error message... Now I solved this by deleting the inactive models, run the one I want active once, and then hit undo and hide the other icesimulations... Would it be possible to fix, so just hiding the "unused" ones would be enough?

I love it by the way.. First test http://www.highendcams.se/Forsrannan.mov

[origin]

cool, its for some 2.5d game?

[PeterCGS]

No not a game, but some tests for a amusement park layout

Stumbled onto a problem with one test setup.. The particles seems to get stuck on the emitters when I use more than two emitters :/ I tried to get rid of them with a delete by volume node but it didnt seem to want to play.. Any ideas mr Core?

http://www.highendcams.se/Niagara.mov

[PeterCGS]

Ok, tested some dynamic collision.. Get some funky movement, that I dont seem to be able to get rid of.. Will test more soon.. http://www.highendcams.se/The_Racer.mov

[druitre]

No not a game, but some tests for a amusement park layout

Stumbled onto a problem with one test setup.. The particles seems to get stuck on the emitters when I use more than two emitters :/ I tried to get rid of them with a delete by volume node but it didnt seem to want to play.. Any ideas mr Core?

http://www.highendcams.se/Niagara.mov

mr Core said something about this in an earlier post -

>> cannot seem to add or delete particles or use age etc without the solver failing.
It is my limitation, I will finish these features after implosia's release and it must be the same stable as built-in particle simulation node:)

The sticking to geometry I can get rid of by lowering friction and restitution on obstacles to 0.005 and setting friction on fluid properties also to 0.005. possibly has drawbacks to use low values like that though...

By the way, thanks mr Core for that vorticity scene. It works but in my scene it gives me a lot of jittering/noise with particles changing values each frame apparently. I fixed it by hooking up a 'smooth color' compound and now it looks great.