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Graphics Goodness - Fluid Dynamics Rendering

4/23/2013 4:25:00 PM -- Ted Krapf

<p>PhysXInfo seems to have solved a challenging tasks, making computer generated water look like water. &nbsp;Now, I'm not talking about fluid rendering with the horsepower like ILM uses for movies like <em>The Perfect Storm</em><strong style="font-style: italic;">, </strong>but instead using a commercial available desktop to render out the magic in real-time. &nbsp;Think video game, instead of pre-rendered movie special effects.<br /> <br /> </p> <p>Rendering water is particularly tricky because it takes a ton of processing cycles manipulating triangle based meshes, similar to this image below. &nbsp;The higher resolution the water, the more triangles and the more math the computer needs to crunch.</p> <p><img alt="Ted Krapf" src="//www.tedkrapf.com/portals/tedkrapf.com/images/mesh.JPG" /></p> <p>Instead PhysXInfo has come up with a process that is able to real-time render beautiful fluid dynamics using their Position Based Fluids software using a technique they call Position Based Dynamics. &nbsp;Instead of using a multi-million dollar rendering server farm, the following video was powered by a nVidia GTX 850 based video card that can be purchased today for a couple hundred USD. &nbsp;Check out the video below to see what PhysXInfo has been up to. &nbsp;While it's certainly not a replacement for what ILM, Pixar, Dreamworks and other animation studios can do, for use in a video game, it's pretty spectacular. &nbsp;(make sure to switch the video HD)</p> <p><br /> </p> <object width="560" height="315"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6WZZARzpckw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6WZZARzpckw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></object>

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