FumeFX Unity

As a little break from MegaFiers over the holiday period I did a little work on my FumeFX based flow simulation system for Unity, a little more info can be found on My Blog or a little video below.
Chris

Update: Early demo of the FumeFX system in Unity.

Further work

Controlling particles

And more

 

Wow! this looks great! If you link it up to the new 3.5 particle system it would open up an entire world of possibilities.

 

Looks similar to an aerodinamics sim.

 

Not far off Pulov was done for a virtual wind tunnel but can be used for driving particle systems for all sorts of effects.

 

Looks very awsome ! This will be able to create some very cool new effects.

 

Looks very interesting, but does it require FumeFX to work?

 

No, you can import data from FumeFx, Maya etc via industry standard FXD or FXA files. If you Maya then we have a custom exporter for Maya Fluids as well. Or you can just use the built in editor to generate your own flow fields using splines and obstacles.

 

Hi,
An independent product or a plugin for Megafiers?
BtW, Happy new year.

JP

 

Thank you and a Hapy New year back I suspect it will form a separate product when it's done.

 

Good news

JP

 

That looks cool, I could certainly fine a use for this.

 

Wow, awesome!

 

what was this wind tunnel you were talking about?
besides the particle flow thing, is it also possible to set the player movement along the flow-"way/tunnel" ?
say you want too make a racer and you define with this extension the y-way you can drive on and just have to move right/left accelerate/break as player input.

 

Just a quick note to say I have been doing a little more work on the FumeFX system, a very early demo video below.

 

very interesting, can you tell us more about it, and possible use cases?

 

The mind boggles, i'll get you a fumefx video

Thats a very old demo, fumefx can do even more now, but what spookycat's doing is getting the data that drives those flames/gases, its a fluid simulator i guess

Obviously it's not rendering smoke or fire in spookycats , just the dynamics of it, but this opens opportunities, you could make effects that simulated the smoke (This is exactly something im after lately but i dont know what will do exactly what im after atm), but if youre recreating a wind tunnel with it, you can very nicely animate debris flying through it, now scale that up to any kind of situation like that!

Going back to fumefx's original use, nvidia did a demo AGES ago to show off the 8800, the smoke in a box demo

Consider reappropriating that with the above simulation, where youre in a house thats on fire and the fire is on the other side of a closed door to you

That kind of stuff jumps to mind immediately

 

And yeah i just played around with Fluidity a bit, a fluid simulation on the asset store, and i'm quite convinced being able to drive it wth this simulation data could get a Unity-based fume-fx-a-like in realtime, which would be pretty swanky i think!

 

its not rendering fumefx data as it is in fumefx. Its just using simulation data, Am i right?

 

Yup, i think thats it, although as i tried to illustrate i dontt see why someone with a knack for these things could come out with a nice realtime renderer

 

Yeah you are right it could be nice to see offline simulated data on dx11 realtime renderer while fumeFX has GPU rendering already..

 

Somebody can tell me how to use FumeFX Effect in Unity? Export fbx file?

 

The short answer is you can't use FumeFX data with Unity, there is no system available in Unity that will import any of the data FumeFX generates. You could bake your simulation down to a point cache file and use a system from the asset store to play that back. The system I show above is a solution that will allow the flow data from FumeFX and eventually RealFlow to be imported into Unity and then with a custom physics solution used to move objects in the scene and or control particle systems.

What is it you need to get from FumeFX to Unity?

 

Thanks for your ansers. I want to some effect fire, smoke...in Unity, so that i learned FumeFx. Can you tell should i use FumeFX? I just only need some strongly effect from my game, ex: fire and smoke of grenade, fire from a Dragon, blah..blah...By the way, if i want to imported like you, how can i do?

 

You don't really need FumeFX for that, just play with the particle system in Unity, there are plenty of fire examples out there to get you started. FumeFX is more for complex flows of fluids with interactions of objects etc.

 

Yes, i understand very well, i know about Particle System in Unity. But, i mean: i really need some strongly and beautiful effect, so that i'm learning FumeFX, Houdini or something like that. Now, please tell me, if i use RealFlow, i can import fumeFX into Unity by your way? It's possible?

 

Well the system will not support the various fancy rendering types you get in FumeFX or Houdini, the nice clouds and fire effects take a lot of processing power, the data we use and export is used to control objects or particles in Unity so the rendering side is left up to whatever Unity can do with shaders and the particle system, we dont directly add the nice rendering of clouds, water, foam etc that is beyond what is possible in realtime for most hardware. But using the data generated by FumeFX etc more realistic particle systems can be generated such as smoke particles blowing around buildings, or water particles flowing through a scene and around objects correctly.

 

What do you mean?
P/s: sorry, my english skil not good, i can't understand you so clearly. What matter i want: can you give a tutorial link how to connect fumefx into Unity by Realflow or by your way?

 

You will need to purchase the MegaFlow system from the Asset Store when it is available, there is currently no way to get FumeFX data into Unity. We are working on the system at the moment so it shouldn't be long before it is available.

 

So, how about Realflow? I see you use it to import into Unity.

 

longbottomup : Are you looking for something like Fluidity ?

 

Thanks for help. That's exactly what i need, but that''s packer, i want to do it by myself. Example: i need a fire effect from my Dragon'Mouth or a Gun, or a Meteorites with fire so angry in sky, blah..blah..I have create it with FumeFX, Houdini or something else, but i don't how to connect it into Unity. Please tell me something, how to fix my issues.

 

Interested in seeing this go live now, very interested, ive got a bundle of things coming together that i wish to use to create.. quite an impressive volcano. Fluidity, the same guys' pyroclastic ball, subtle use of particles, you name it and I am fascinated in seeing what this could contribute to the effect if the data you're getting can drive a realtime gpu fluid simulation like that, with the information this software provides, but of course it doesnt end there

 

This system has now been released


What is MegaFlow
Have you ever wanted to simulate a wind tunnel in your game, or have leaves of snow blow through your village flowing naturally around buildings, speeding up down alley ways or settling slowly in the lee of an obstacle, Lava flowing down a volcano side or Waterfalls cascading over rocks, Or a car stirring up leaves as it drives along a road in Autumn, vortices for your plane wings, perhaps an object floating along fast moving water, tornadoes, or even simulate gravity around objects in space, if so then MegaFlow can help.

MegaFlow is a set of systems that allow you to use Vector Fields to control the movement of objects or particle systems in Unity. Vector fields are a 2D or 3D grids of values that describe the direction and magnitude of velocities for that point in space. The Vector Field can be generated by systems such as Maya Fluids, FumeFX, Krakatoa, etc. MegaFlow can import the files generated by those systems in the form of .FXD or .FXA files, it also has an exporter for Maya that will export any Maya fluid simulation to the MegaFlow .FLW format. You can then import a single frame or multiple frames into the MegaFlow system in Unity and then use that to control the movement of particles from either the Shuriken or Legacy particle system, or control movement of Rigid Bodies or just general objects. Don't worry though if you don't have access to any Fluid Simulation software as MegaFlow also comes with a system that allows you to author your own Vector Fields inside Unity using multiple splines to define flow directions and forces.



The movement of objects interacting with the Vector Fields is via a simple physics simulation which has parameters that allow you to control the overall force the field applies and the mass of the objects that are interacting with it, this means you can adjust the look and feel of the flow from either a very tight following of the flow to a subtle influencing only of objects that move through the field. You can change the force the field exerts or reverse the flow direction. All the values can be adjusted at runtime via script of the Unity animation system if required.The physics code used is optimized for performance and makes use of multi threading on any system that has multiple cores for super fast performance even with 10's of thousands of particles being moved.



If a system such as FumeFX or Maya fluids has been used to create the Vector Fields then that would allow you to place obstacles into the flow, if the flow is then used to control a Particle system you can get even more performance back by disabling the collision system in the Particle system, since the Vector Field will now handle moving the particles around objects in the way, this can get you quite a saving in CPU time in complex scenes. You can off course still use the collision system of the particles or rigid bodies alongside the flow system if you wish.

The Vector Field source can have any number of Vector Fields loaded so you can do animation of flows if required, or just easily swap the flow field being used to change the look and flow of your scene. You can ask the system to show you the flow through the system of objects via the visualization options, or display the flow as either vector lines or colored cells.





Included in MegaFlow are various components to help you use the Vector Fields in your projects. There are components to control the Unity particle systems as well as a component you can attach to any rigid body object that will then allow that object to be influenced by the Vector Field. There is also an example Smoke Gun script that will inject large numbers of objects into a scene so you can see how they flow.

To find our more about the system as well as the complete docs on the various parts of the system please visit our website. http://www.west-racing.com/mf/?page_id=5892

Features

• Support for FumeFX FXD file import
• Support for FGA file import
• Custom Maya Fluids Exporter
• Create Vector Fields in Unity
• Multi-Threaded physics
• Highly optimized physics code
• C# Source Code Included
• Multiple frames of flow data per source
• Control Legacy or Shuriken particles
• Control Rigid Bodies
• Control Normal Objects
• Works in Unity Free
• Works on Mobile devices
• Flow visualization
• Create a 3d Texture from the flow
• MegaShapes Lite included

Available Now
MegaFlow is available no on the Asset Store or on our Website for the special early adopter price of $50, as with all our assets we will be adding new features over the coming months so if you have anything you would like to see please let us know.

Video Examples
Below are some videos showing the MegaFlow system being used in a couple of scenarios, the first uses a Maya Fluid simulation to simulate the airflow around objects in a scene, the second shows the in Unity creation of Vector Fields from splines and that then being used to control a particle system. The third shows a Vector Field being created inside Unity using splines to define flows.

 

Holy sh....!
I was looking for something like this for ages.
Would it be possible to simultate air movement/circulation inside a car?
Is FumeFX necessaray to reach this or would your plugin be able too, as standalone in Unity?

 

awesome

 

You could certainly use it to show airflow around a car, you could either model the airflow accurately using say FumeFX, Maya Fluids etc and then import the resulting Vector Field, or if you do not have access to any fluid simulation software then you could use the Create From Spline system show in one of the videos above to define the air movement in the car then connect a particle system to that. You do not need any Fluid Sim plugins to use MegaFlow, we are hoping to improve the in Unity authoring of Vector Fields as users suggest new features and also support more fluid system file formats, though FXD and FGA are used a lot, FGA is the format used by Unreal Engine for controlling its particle system, and RealFlow and Kraktoa can export to FXD. We have a RealFlow bin file parser but we dont at the moment have any test files. We have been asked if we can support Modo and Blender fluids and again we are looking into that.

 

Great, thanks!

 

We have been working on a new feature that will be coming soon to MegaFLow amd that is moving flow sources,it allows you to have moving MegaFlow sources in a scene that follow the path of a moving object and allow that object to interact with particles as it moves through them. The video below is in two parts the first part of the video shows a scene with leaves and smoke and a car driving through them, as expected no interaction happens between the car and the particles. With the Moving source system turned on the car will now react nicely with the leaves and smoke, dragging the particles along in the MegaFlow vector field that is attached to the car. The Vector Field was generated using FumeFX in 3DS Max and imported into MegaFlow.

Also the inclusion of the Moving Source system will see the end of the early adopter pricing for MegaFlow, so if you are thinking of getting MegaFlow act soon

 

The possibilities for this boggle the mind, i was on it like a shot. If it hasn't been fixed yet or I can't do it, would be a nice time for me to try get the Fluidity author to fix it up for OR, or have a look for some volumetric fluid sims that could be driven by this, new gen all in there everywhere

Edit: Ups, didn't notice this had been brought up before, by myself even! Should sleep more. Gives me a new research subject, mind, and fancy star feature to pursue

 

Is this compatible with Unity 5?

 

Yes works fine in Unity 5, though for some reason when importing the test scene Unity decides to lose all the connection for the scripts so objects have missing components, I guess this is something Unity will fix in future betas, but creating new Sources etc works just fine.

 

Just a quick post to say the early adopter price for MegaFlow will be ending soon so if you were thinking of getting the system act quickly.

 

I think a few more video examples of what this kind of system can mean to a dev or game's features would help a lot in demonstrating the extreme appeal of getting hold of this while it's at such an agreeable price (Maybe the sections in the Unreal 4 promo vids covering vector fields with particles could be a simple analogue) but yeah, folks should get this now rather than later

 

Working on it I am not an artist at all so struggle a bit putting nice looking scenes together, have to rely on a lot of web searching for assets etc, unless off course my brother is available but hes rather busy on our game I have been looking at the Unreal videos so will see about emulating those.

 

We hope to get the update with the moving sources on the asset store today or tomorrow, the docs on the system are on the website, just doing a video or two showing how to use the new components and a demo scene in the asset. The release will see the end of the early adopter pricing.

 

Quick video showing how to use the Moving Source system coming in the next update of MegaFlow.

 

Submitted a new version to the Asset store and on our website, this brings the beta of the moving source system along with controllers for the Shuriken and legacy particle systems. Also added a Sample velocity helper which you can attach to your game objects to get the velocity data for that position so you could use that data to control a flight sim or allow drafting in a racing game for example. The docs have also been updated to include the new features and the changes to the inspectors, and if you have MegaWires you can now use flow sources as wind input to the wire physics system. And the latest Unity 5.0 beta now imports packages correctly so the demo scenes work just fine now.

Changes in v1.08

• Added beta of the new moving source system.
• Added a simple demo scene showing the moving source in use.
• Added a Shuriken particle controller that uses moving sources.
• Added a legacy particle controller that uses moving sources.
• Added method to MegaFlowFrame API to get flow velocity as a world space position. Makes it easier to use for external scripts.
• Changes made so users of MegaWires can use flow sources as wind sources for the wire physics.
• Improved the inspector layout for the Create Flow system.
• Added helper component MegaFlowSample which has two methods to allow you to get easily get the velocity from a flow field.
• Updated the docs page for the MegaFlow source to show new options.
• Updated the docs page for the Create Flow system to show the new options and inspector layout.

 

Just submitted an update to the Asset Store, this brings some fixes for Unity 5 and also updates the MegaShapes system to include numerous bug fixes and features. Remember you can use the included MegaShapes spline system for building meshes or for path following not just for defining flows.

Changes in v1.10

• Further small changes to make compatible with Unity 5.0
• Made changes for latest Unity 5 beta to fix any import warnings.
• Fixed exception when adding a new curve to a shape.
• Added option to Spline Tube Mesh to flip normals for inside tubes.
• Added option to Spline Box Mesh to flip normals for inside box tubes.
• Added option to Spline Ribbon Mesh to flip normals.
• Imported SXL splines will now no longer change values to centre the spline.
• Imported SVG splines will now no longer change values to centre the spline.
• Added Centre Shape button to Shapes Inspector to allow you move the pivot to the centre of all the points.
• Added new InterpCurve3D method which will return the postion, twist and also rotation quaternion for a point on a spline.
• Autocurve now does the first and last handles on open splines.
• Added 'Update on Drag' option to MegaShape inspector, if checked spline meshes will update as you drag, off then they will update when dragging stops.
• Fixed inspector for spline animations so buttons aren't hidden.
• Added a namesplit option for FGA, FLW and FXD sequence loading in case your filenames have numbers in apart from the sequence number.
• For FGA importing also added a Decimal Format value so you can say how many numbers make up the sequence part.

 

You can use meshed splines for 3D representation of flows? thats extremely cool, taken a note