Fluid simulations in an independent visual effects pipeline
Daniel Bodenstein, Christopher P. Redmann · 2012
Fluid simulations are among some of the most difficult shots completed by visual effects artists. Long simulation times, high memory requirements, and limited control are just a few of the major issues in fluid simulation. Many large visual effects studios have custom fluid solvers, with well-developed pipelines and teams of developers supporting them. Independent artists working on fluid simulation shots lack those resources. Independent artists have the option of several commercial fluid solvers with different ways of creating fluid simulations and vastly different user interfaces. This can quickly add complication to the already complicated and difficult task of fluid simulation at a production quality level. This thesis presents a unified application that allows for initial simulation setup across a multitude of commercially available fluid solvers. This application aims to aid artists in creating fluid simulations by bringing together the controls from multiple applications and providing a single interface to several different solvers and simulation algorithms. In addition to the application, this thesis presents an evaluation of each supported fluid solver across various production situations, to further assist artists in selecting the appropriate solver for a given fluid simulation shot.