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RenderMan-like dynamics engine ;)


symek

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Have you seen this episode 62: http://www.fxguide.com/fxguidetv.html

Here is a company page: http://www.exoticmatter.com

~ "graph based simulation engine similar to prman" ;) Nevertheless results look impressive.

This is the company co-founded by Robert Bridson, who knows fluid simulation backwards and forwards (with error correction!...sorry, geeky fluids joke). He wrote a great book on this stuff, taught the Siggraph course on it for a couple of years, and he and Marcus, the other guy, apparently wrote a production fluid sim for Double Negative. So I'd guess the underlying simulation technology will be rock-solid, with some interesting new approaches.

He's a big fan of PIC/FLIP, particle/grid hybrid approaches, which lets you do some cool things like get the accuracy of a grid-based pressure solve without necessarily having to restrict the simulation domain to a fixed voxel grid. So you can reinitialize the voxel grid from the particles at the appropriate size each timestep and then solve. If you're simulating a liquid that splashes and separates over time, I think theoretically you can figure out which parts of the liquid are distinct and solve those pieces independently and in a completely parallel fashion. FWIW, Houdini's not-really-complete Sand Solver uses PIC/FLIP, I believe, based at least in part on this Bridson paper.

Anyway, it should be really interesting to see what they come up with.

wow... have they never heard of Houdini?

I accosted him like a fan-boy at Siggraph and talked Houdini among other things with him, so I know for a fact they have :)

Edited by johner
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This is the company co-founded by Robert Bridson, who knows fluid simulation backwards and forwards (with error correction!...sorry, geeky fluids joke). He wrote a great book on this stuff, taught the Siggraph course on it for a couple of years, and he and Marcus, the other guy, apparently wrote a production fluid sim for Double Negative. So I'd guess the underlying simulation technology will be rock-solid, with some interesting new approaches.

(....)

I have this book! (I'm not saying I understood anything).

Thanks for details johner. Actually I was pretty sure they know what they are talking about after seeing those previews. Just renderman made me laugh :).

cheers!

skk.

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I have this book! (I'm not saying I understood anything).

Thanks for details johner. Actually I was pretty sure they know what they are talking about after seeing those previews. Just renderman made me laugh :) .

cheers!

skk.

It is like RenderMan in the sense that we use a high-level text-file interface (similar to a RIB file) with matching C bindings (similar to Ri) to describe *what* to simulate just as the RenderMan Interface describes *what* to render. The RenderMan Interface has chosen a state-machine metaphor for its scene description whereas we chose a node-based metaphor. The design of this nodal framework was inspired from compositing, not Houdini, although at the surface they do, at first glance, look similar.

cheers

Marcus :)

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Hi Marcus,

Nice of you to chime in. The interface looks a bit like Shake/nuke but you can't blame us Houdini folks for relating to it immediately. ;)

Any plans to create a plugin of the solver for Houdini? The way Naiad works is just so similar to Houdini though the speed will be a completely different story. :)

Cheers!

steven

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It is like RenderMan in the sense that we use a high-level text-file interface (similar to a RIB file) with matching C bindings (similar to Ri) to describe *what* to simulate just as the RenderMan Interface describes *what* to render. The RenderMan Interface has chosen a state-machine metaphor for its scene description whereas we chose a node-based metaphor. The design of this nodal framework was inspired from compositing, not Houdini, although at the surface they do, at first glance, look similar.

cheers

Marcus :)

For what it's worth, my comment was not suggesting that you ripped off any of Houdini's architecture, but that it may have made more sense (at least at first glance) to incorporate your work into Houdini rather than starting from scratch.

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For what it's worth, my comment was not suggesting that you ripped off any of Houdini's architecture, but that it may have made more sense (at least at first glance) to incorporate your work into Houdini rather than starting from scratch.

my point exactly

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