FumeFX Suggestions

[Galagast]

Fxd File Cropping:
- Able to crop existing fxd files.
- usefull for fume libraries to take up lesser disk space.
- cropping by:
- bounding Box
- object volume
- voxel data threshold

Fxd File Combine:
- able to combine simulations into one fxd file sequence.
- combine voxel data by average or by min/max

Fxd File Generate:
- say for example generate fluid mapping from an existing fuel, velocity sim?
- generate smoke from an existing fuel sim?

Cache Mesh Voxels:
- this could be usefull for very large scenes
- when simming, instead of reading all the geometry (with modifers, animations and stuff), a mesh voxel data is used instead.

Fume Source: Invert
- say a sphere or box source, with SET Fuel:0 (kill the fuel in the sim), what normally happens is that any voxel inside this source will get the effect of having its fuel value set to 0. It would be nice to be able to invert this effect so that what's outside the volume gets the Fuel:0 setting.

Burn Maps:
- something like wet maps
- generates a sequence of bitmaps where colors are controlled by voxel thresholds, like a certain heat value will color the maps with white.
- might also be usefull as moisture maps

Preview: Elevation/Z-Depth Shading Type
- is it possible to shade the voxels in the preview (or even in the render) using elevation (the lower/farther parts gets white, higher/nearer parts gets black) and z-depth?
- this is because when previewing the smoke in the Preview window, its usually hard to guess the depth of the smoke without seeing the shadows.

Object Volume Emission:
- it would be nice to generate voxel using the actual object volume
- it seems that when using Object Sources, only the surfaces generate voxels (unless i'm mistaken )
- option to also use 3d map emission within the volume

[sitnisati]

Thank you for your wishlist !
I'm sure that some of the ideas will be added to FumeFX 2.0.

Regards,

Kresimir

[Galagast]

Fume Loader
- a separate plugin where users could just load cache files, and render.
- good for having cache libraries
- able to load a sequence of caches or just a single cache (ala point cache).. imagine a forest made of static fume mushroom clouds.

Adaptive Grid Control
- able to control the adaptive grid as an object. (animate it, move. scale etc..)

Lock Grid to World option
- this will lock the fume voxel grid to always align to the world coordinates.
- useful for linking the fume grid to animated objects prior to simming.


Objects
- option to turn off it's 2-sided effect on the sim. (disregard the backface)
- currently, when using objects with fume, the voxels collide with the surface on both sides.
- good for vapor/dry ice appearing from beneath a surface.. the setup will have the fume emitter below/under an objects surface.
- can also be controlled by black and white maps. White parts are 2-sided, black parts are 1-sided.

[Jordan]

Great suggestions Galagast!

Just to extend the cropping idea:

Draft Simulation:
Have a Draft Sim checkbox that enables the following:
Only simming a cropped area of the grid with its own grid spacing settings.
This sim data would be saved to a different location as not to corrupt the main sim

The ability to retime the sim data in fxd form

[sitnisati]

Already thinking about methods for sim preview - thank you for your vote !

Kresimir

[Galagast]

Show Slice > by Percentage
- A way to position the slice grid by percentage.
- A setting of 50% will always place the slice plane in the center of the grid.


Colored Sim Log
- An option to colorize certain entries of the log window


Auto-Save Sim Log Messages
- An option in the preferences to where we could pick a path folder to save the fume message log.
- Filenames could be fumefx_MAXFILENAME.log

Turbulence

1. An option to change the Turbulence Noise Seeds.
   
2. Support for Negative values. This allows to invert the effect of the turbulence.
   
3. Turbulence by Gizmo, with falloff. Turbulence will only occur inside a gizmo's volume. Or if it's not too much trouble, a way to have the turbulence inside a mesh volume. Plus an option to invert the effect.

[sitnisati]

Hello Galagast,

Thank you for your wishlist !
I think that we'll add sim log feature as it could be used to track network sims.

Regards,

Kresimir

[Galagast]

>I think that we'll add sim log feature as it could be used to track network sims.
Thanks Kresmir, that would be great. An additional info that can be useful in the log would probably be the name of the machine that did the sim.


More suggestions/wish list:

Particle Src
- Option to use the Particle Shape data, instead of a sphere.
- Option to use the map/material data from the particles.
- Roughly, I would like to have the same controls as the Simple Source, but on a per particle basis.

Sim Preview Window
- A way to set the viewport used by the preview window.
- Sometimes during a net sim, If I was to check the sim progress (via Remote Desktop) and press the preview button, I would want to change the viewport that it's using to generate the preview.

Sim Preview
- Anyway to get the sim preview to show up in the viewport? (Similar to houdini? I was quite surprised to also see that it was also interacting with the lights in real time!)

Maxscript:
- stopPressed() and canceledPressed()
- Maxscript file assignment via script. Currently, I can't seem to find a way to assign a script for fume to use.
- Maybe add a script file list. Each script can have its own callback functions, each file executed sequentially.

Sim Range & Playback Range
- An option to sync these two together.
- Start Frame = Play From =? Start Frame
- End Frame = Play To
- Maybe incorporate lock buttons for the parameters to signify synchronization.

Unyielding Cache
- Say for example I simulate a velocity into a cache, I would want to use this cache to affect a new simulation.

Custom Path for FumeFX Presets
- I think I saw this posted before, the option to set the presets to a network folder would be very handy indeed.

[Galagast]

FXD Viewer
- An external program that lets you view .fxd file sequences.
- This can be usefull if you're simulating over a network, and you just want to check the current state of the simulation from another pc without opening max.

Backburner Net Sim Progress
- Able to view the actual progress of the sim right from the backburner monitor.
- currently we cannot see the progress of the sim.

2D Mode
- I've seem a lot of Java applets out there that can do fluid simulations, it would be nice to have something like this with fume.
- Currently, it seems impossible to create a flat grid to simulate this. (e.g. 10x1x10)
- Usefull for non "Hero" smoke, flames in the background, or anime/toon films.
- I think I also recall Maya's fluids has a 2D mode..

Falloff Near Objects
- Similar to the option Falloff around Container Edges, but for objects.
- These objects doesn't necessarily have to be with the simulation.
- Maybe use SelectionSets to designate objects for the falloff calculation.
- Option to controll the falloff via Curve Controls.

Color Near Objects
- Similar to the suggestion above "Falloff Near Objects", but this is for controlling the colors near the objects instead.

Turbulence Noise Types
- Is it possible to have more Turbulence Noise types?
- Maybe something more suited for an underwater or viscous types of environment?
- ..or Space turbulence if they even have a formula for that.

Fume Blend Modes
- able to blend overlapping fume grids.. max/min/average/curve


FCM (FumeFX Channels Modifier) :lol:
- a straight rip-off from Krakatoa's KCM - Magmaflow.
- I really wanted to put it in here because the idea of post manipulation via the modifier stack is really awesome.
- It could probably be used to modify the channels, or even create new ones based of the existing ones..
- Then have a way to save it out as a new .fxd cache sequence.
- Things like Color, Density, Velocity, Voxel Average/Neighbors, Mapping, Fuel and Temp should be modifiable.

AB > FFX
- A way to convert an Afterburn Volume to a FumeFx Volume.

[sitnisati]

Hello Jeff,

Thank you for a wish-lists.
I really appreaciate it.

Kresimir