FumeFX 5 for Maya Available

Sitni Sati has revealed the latest version or FumeFX for Maya. The update brings improved integration with Maya, a redesigned simulation core, GPU accelerated display that’s integrated with Viewport 2.0, improved CPU usage for the QCG Solver, and more.

Workflow

• FumeFX GPU accelerated display has been integrated within the Maya Viewport 2.0. The new display includes volumetric shadows, proper geometry occlusion and instant shader feedback.
• The Data preview has been changed and allows a user to choose voxel display size.
• Updated FumeFX shelf provides access to FumeFX and source creation as well as simulation control.

Simulation

• Simulation core redesign allows usage of complex geometry instead of using proxies without breaking the solver or causing instabilities.
• The new Conservatiove Advection allows to easily create fluid flows that minimize numerical losses and keep the fluid in motion even after 900 frames of animation.

• Speed improvements for the QCG solver. Updated solver is now able to use nearly 100% CPUs even on machines with 20+ cores. This optimization has resulted with up to 20% faster QCG compared to FumeFX 4.0.
• Smooth retiming regardless of simulation sub-steps and retiming scale factor.
• Depending on the scene setup, the latest version of FumeFX delivers up to 20% faster simulation in total.
• Ability to retime simulation during the Wavelet Turbulence pass.
• Vorticity II optimizations include faster calculations and lower memory requirements.
• Support for nParticles with FumeFX Particle Emitter.
• Improved simulation scaling. Grids of different spacing will result in similar simulations. FumeFX 5 also improves scaling with CPU cores used in a simulation.
• Fixed color channel bleeding during the simulation.

I/O Subsystem

• The new lossy .fxd compression allows per-channel compression quality and mixing of lossless and lossy channels inside the same cache file.
• State of the art multithreaded .fxd I/O for ultra-fast caches saving and loading.
• Load caches at user-defined reduced resolution allows artist easier viewport manipulation and rendering setup.
•  Minimize grid during the cache saving produces smaller files that save faster and render faster.
• FumeFX 5 writes OpenVDB caches in a form that makes them easily readable inside the Arnold Volume Grid, Redshift grid and even Houdini. The FumeFX vdb cache will be correctly positioned which makes any OpenVDB workflow straightforward.
• Added OpenVDB support for Wavelet Turbulence simulation.
• Various OpenVDB caches optimizations and fixes.

Rendering

• New built-in FumeFX-Arnold Volume that supports Arnold’s Standard Volume shader (does not require FumeFX shader license).
• Unified shader license that supports FumeFX Standard Shader for VRay, mental ray and Arnold.
• Added Standard Shader support for Arnold AOV’s – normal, motionvector and depth.

You can get more details here.