Hi-speed macrophotography of fluid spashes classically show how delicate, impossibly thin and continuous sheets of fluid fly thru the air and stay coherent for prolonged periods. These produce tiny droplets and hair-like strings of fluid from their margins but otherwise hold together for a long time, before they eventually and suddenly burst apart. CG fluids on the other hand always break apart immediately, forming very unattractive and distinctly un-real cheese-like holes and webbing, never holding together in thin sheets. This has generally been the limit of CG fluid applications, and is what drives studios to have expensive table-top practical shoots, since CG fluids simply haven't been able to reproduce the very particular small-scale features of real fluids -- until now.

Fusion CI Studios has developed a breakthrough technology that completely revolutionizes the potential of cg fluids. The gorgeous splashes, streams, and swaths of fluid that are so popular now in everything from beer to body lotion ads have only been achievable through a deft combination of cg effects, high-speed photography and brilliant compositing. Now, cg fluids alone can create this look & behavior, achieving outstanding, photo-real results.

Using a new technology they’re calling ‘smorganic’ (smooth and organic), the artists at Fusion CI Studios, Los Angeles, are creating breathtaking, photo-real splashes that can be spread a delicate 1-particle thin without breaking-up into the characteristic cg fluid ‘webbing.’ And the fluid is completely controllable, therefore art-directable. “So now we’re only limited by the imaginations of our creative directors,” says Lauren Millar, partner and executive producer at Fusion CI Studios. “We specialize exclusively in dynamic fx, so this has been an incredible breakthrough for us. We receive countless requests from vfx studios and agencies to create smooth, flowing, photo-real splashes and thin delicate streams. While we’ve achieved results that are outstanding for cg fluids, there were still limitations with the technology resulting in a less than accurate photo-real look. Now with ‘smorganic,’ the sky’s the limit.”



Developed by Mark Stasiuk, co-founder and head of vfx at Fusion Studios, ‘smorganic’ solves a long-standing problem for fluid fx. “When creating thin sheets or splashes of liquid, CG fluids break apart immediately, forming really unattractive, distinctly ‘cheese-like’ holes or webbing, never holding together in thin sheets,” says Stasiuk. “This has been a serious limitation of CG fluid applications, and has resulted in studios & production companies preferring expensive table-top practical shoots to achieve the look”

The image below is a render of a simulation of a liquid honey pour where Fusion artists used smorganic to eliminate any holes in the fluid. The image shows the smoothness of the resulting meshes despite the high-spec, high-refractive nature of the shader and lighting, and despite a hard impact with a rigid body.

Without smorganic, the cg honey pour would have broken into thousands of fragments on impact. And that’s if the fluid stayed intact for the whole pour before it even got to the ball. The image below is typical cg fluid without smorganic – you can see how it breaks up into ‘webbing’ and that the fluid has to be thicker than desired to maintain its integrity.

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The technology that Stasiuk developed hunts for holes as they form during the fluid simulation process, and immediately fills-in the gaps with new fluid. The key is that the fluid insertion is done very precisely, so the simulation stays extremely stable. “The fluid stays as a fully coherent sheet for as long as we want,” says Stasiuk, “It’s remarkable, we tried to break it. We simulated a fluid sheet being bashed violently by noise forces and it still ran entirely stably with no holes.”

“We’re incredibly excited about what this means for our clients. Now they have options and don’t have to rely on a lengthy, expensive process combing practical shoots with cg effects,” says Lauren. “Already we’ve created some absolutely gorgeous effects with streaming liquid-chocolate, water tornados, and fruit-juice crown splashes.”

“Right now we’re working on tests that combine smorganic with our recently developed fluid morphing technology. That’s going to be an exciting combination,” adds Stasiuk.


Links :

Fusion CI Studios

See Also : GPU Accelerated Ray-tracing, What's new?

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