Naiad

[Symbolic]

Hello,

Naiad @ Exotic Matter

I know that this has been discussed here before:

RenderMan-like dynamics engine

So anything new about it? I know some companies are already using it. It seems very Houdini friendly in terms of workflow etc.

"... Each node in the Naiad Graph is called a Naiad Operator, or NOP for short. There are two kinds of NOPs: Body Operators (BOPs) and Field Operators (FOPs). ..."

Sounds exciting.

Edited March 10, 2010 by Symbolic

[Symbolic]

Haha!

It seems like this issue is a bit obscure right now. I do not think I will be getting more information than there is in: fxguidetv #062 episode.

Lots of things are still industrial secrets right now.

I hope it gets more open soon.

[Marc]

Naiad is still in early beta, so information is scarce. Although I'm sure I'm not overstepping my bounds by saying that it's Totally Awesome!!!!

really though.... fantastic stuff.

[CeeGee]

Still whaiting for Beta1

This one project was done with NAIAD

Marabou_Sensation

http://www.ilpvfx.com/project?project=Marabou_Sensation_September-2009-100

There is a making of

[Symbolic]

Ah! Yes! ILP are some of the first people to have used it. It looks good. It seems like it is going to fit in any pipeline since it does just one thing... and it does it good: Fluids.

It generates mesh for fluids... but how it exports the voxel based volumetric stuff? You can get the mesh to Houdini... you can get the flip particles to Houdini and mesh them in Houdini and finally render. But how you will be bringing the density (smoke stuff) into Houdini?

Any ideas?

I have been using a propriety software developed by the people who are developing Naiad, and I know it is really powerful and good. That's why it is really exciting to know that it is going to be out there very soon.

Thanks.

[lukeiamyourfather]

Ah! Yes! ILP are some of the first people to have used it. It looks good. It seems like it is going to fit in any pipeline since it does just one thing... and it does it good: Fluids.

It generates mesh for fluids... but how it exports the voxel based volumetric stuff? You can get the mesh to Houdini... you can get the flip particles to Houdini and mesh them in Houdini and finally render. But how you will be bringing the density (smoke stuff) into Houdini?

Any ideas?

I have been using a propriety software developed by the people who are developing Naiad, and I know it is really powerful and good. That's why it is really exciting to know that it is going to be out there very soon.

Thanks.

I saw this a while back and the site still looks the same. What's exciting to me is the interface is open source. The part you pay for is the solver. Hopefully there will be a good API to talk to the solver so it can be used in, well, Houdini for example if you don't want to use their interface. Cheers!

[aracid]

all the hard water shots on avatar were solved with naiad and some internal tools.

But unfortunately it is still beta'ing so not much can be spoken about it.

[Symbolic]

Yeah Brain, I have heard about that.

I am looking forward to it's official release.

Cheers.

[lisux]

I have been using a propriety software developed by the people who are developing Naiad, and I know it is really powerful and good. That's why it is really exciting to know that it is going to be out there very soon.

Thanks.

By any chance this proietary software is called Squirt mumu?

[aracid]

By any chance this proietary software is called Squirt mumu?

[spev]

.

Edited March 12, 2010 by spev

[Symbolic]

Agh! Pablo! You stay away from that conversation... you already know too much!

Yeah, whatever... it is SQUIRT. It is not an industrial secret since it is all over the place, even mentioned on the NAIAD site.

[pclaes]

It seems to simulate quite fast, seems very parallel (using all procs).

And if it is anything like squirt (which I have never used, but I have seen "2012" and those fluid sims were really impressive) it has a lot of potential.

I also wonder if people will start picking it up and integrating it with their main software. An integration with Houdini would be nice - although I'm not sure if that would make sense to them from a business point of view (Houdini probably being one of their main competitors with node based dynamic systems).

Also quite interested when a community starts to arise, that would allow people to create and share .ni files. Since the API of the interface will be open source, perhaps a non-commercial version of the solver could be made available too... I think realflow has that too (not sure about the exact limitations but it has some). Using that Api it should be possible to make custom DOP nodes that call their solver functions.

I really do think the introduction of .ni files is a smart move. Probably a lot of Maya people are really eager to have a powerful SPH system. I don't know how well it integrates with Maya at the moment or if it is just similar to a geometry importer in Maya. Still, by making the .ni files universal, it could make it a lot easier to go between apps.

I'm also curious as to how much they will charge for the final version , considering everything Houdini Master already offers I think they'll have to price it competitively. If this software would have come out several years ago they would probably have an easier time filling a niche - a bit like Massive has done over the years. I'll definitely be following up on what they're doing.

[Solitude]

I too, am hoping the price will be competitive.... I think more than Houdini, Realflow would be their main competitor, who just lowered the price to 2000 (for a 4 core license) with a free upgrade to realflow5 (which may not have the core limit).

I agree about the .ni file -- hopefully it's a very open format, will make it a lot more accessible. I'm curious too about whether their fire/smoke is actually voxels or not, all I've seen of it so far has been liquid / sph... so here's hoping!

[nanocell]

I too, am hoping the price will be competitive.... I think more than Houdini, Realflow would be their main competitor, who just lowered the price to 2000 (for a 4 core license) with a free upgrade to realflow5 (which may not have the core limit).

I agree about the .ni file -- hopefully it's a very open format, will make it a lot more accessible. I'm curious too about whether their fire/smoke is actually voxels or not, all I've seen of it so far has been liquid / sph... so here's hoping!

Personally, I would much rather invest in Naiad than Realflow even if Naiad is more expensive (although I am curious as to what it will cost). Other than the fact that it has a node-based workflow and has amazing multithreading and simulation capabilities, they are very open with their source and tools surrounding the application whereas RealFlow doesn't even open source their plugins...lame! I think that any modern software package should embrace open source code; it is a great way for getting people to easily develop stuff for / integrate with your software...but let's leave that for another thread on another day. Also, Naiad is very fresh and cutting edge in terms of dynamics research and technology.

The .ni file format will definitely be an open format. Heck, the whole gui (nStudio) is going to be open sourced as well as the command line simulator (which is apparently very few lines of code anyway) which is great! So, Naiad will basically be a closed sourced dynamics engine/library with a bunch of open source tools to use it. Great way to go for integration into any pipeline!

Also, Naiad doesn't do SPH fluid simulation. SPH fluid simulations require your whole fluid to be tracked by particles, even the on the inside, which is bad news for large bodies of water. Naiad, instead, uses a hybrid approach that consist of voxel based fluid simulations and particles used for surface/feature tracking. This approach is muuuuuuch better than doing SPH fluids, especially when working with large bodies of water.

Having said this, I would guess that the fire/smoke would be mostly voxel based but one never knows what tricks they might have up their sleeve. From what I've seen so far, we will be nothing less than impressed anyways

The fluid surfacing functionality in Naiad is amazing and I was suprised to see how fast it was. It looks quite amazing. The more recent Naiad builds has fancy foam particle tools, wet particles and loads of other goodies! Hi-tech toys, every boy's dream!

I have been working on an opens source tool to convert between the .bgeo format and Naiad's EMP format (geo2mp) and have been actively assisted by Marcus Nordenstam is tracking down and fixing bugs in both Naiad and the converter. They release their bug fixes very quickly, and often; we once went through 3 (or was that 4) Naiad updates in one day! If they can keep up this level of tech support I predict nothing but good fortune for them, and for us!

[goldleaf]

Wow. This is amazing. I hope this model of front-end open source, back-end paid takes off.

Can't wait to help you guys test this out!

[Netvudu]

wow, great news. Is it possible to somehow get into beta testing without working on any über-studio? I mean, is this oriented to big effects houses, or will us, mere mortals have access to it?

[nanocell]

wow, great news. Is it possible to somehow get into beta testing without working on any über-studio? I mean, is this oriented to big effects houses, or will us, mere mortals have access to it?

I have no idea whether they will be going into a public beta testing phase or it will be exclusive up to the release. I suspect they might go public, but don't hold it against me if they don't .

[jason_slab]

hey

i agree with nanocell on all his points i'd much rather go with naiad over a product like realflow even if the price was higher.

i just wanted to add, from a production point whether it's commercials or film, the turn around times for sims are really fast, i can actually do a quite few iterations a day!

this is especially important with the short deadlines on commercials!!

jason

[lisux]

I am agree with nanocell.

Niiad is a much better investement than RF.

It doesn't mean RF is not good it is really good, but the simulation methods used by Marcus and company in their solvers is the best one in my opniion, the hybrid model, although nothing new, is being used in the industry more and more, the first commercial package to include it, I think, correct me if I a mwrong, was Houdini with the upres approach. But this model based in FLIP solvers have been uses by propietary solvers in several studios by years and has proven to be the best option.

als othe propietary backend and oprn sourced front end is a really good implementation and business model. Being so open I am pretty sure it wouldn't so hard to integrate it in DOPs, in the same way you can now integrate ODE and Bullet solvers for RBDs.

And yes, Houdini is a competitor to Niiad but the best way to compete with it is to offer a good integration with Houdini so users can test it easily and see if it is better (looking a t the current fluid sovlers in Houdini I am sure is better) and worth the money.

Definitely these guys are really good and I wxpect Niiad is something to take into account.

Unfortunately Netvudu seems they want to offer the product only to some selected studios at the moment, same thing Massive did, but after a period being used as a psuedo-internal tool for some studios it will be open for everybody.