Digimation's
Phoenix 1.5, the latest revision to Phoenix for 3ds max, creates realistic
looking fire within your scene. It's literally as easy as picking your
emitter object and adding fire. In addition to the many parameters,
the presets and quick speed, Phoenix 1.5's greatest new feature is built-in
lights. Phoenix lights will automatically illuminate your scene to give
the realistic flickering, shadows, and effects of light cast from real
fire. You no longer have to endlessly fiddle with your lights to get
the right fire lighting. It's all done for you!
Some
of the improvements to Phoenix 1.5 include the reworked atmospheric
dialog box. Phoenix will now support multiple emitters, gizmos, etc
from the same atmospheric entry. This will make life easier if you have
multiple Phoenix Environments in your scene.
Deflector objects can now be picked and not have to be a part of the
emitter. This means you can use just about any object in your scene
to deflect flames.
The
new and improved flame color controls now support position numbering
so it's easy to see where you're working in the color of the flame.
This will help out a lot if you are looking for a specific color to
your fire.
As discussed above, Phoenix Lights is the newest light type that enables
phoenix flames to become light emitting objects so you can create realistic
lighting situations for your fires or flames.
The Phoenix Render Effect enables Phoenix to work with other extensions
and effects by properly copying G-Buffer data such as Material Effects
IDs and Coverage channels into your scene.
The
Phoenix Fractal Map is another feature that will help in fire creation.
This is a simple procedural map that enables you to create simple small
flammable objects using texture maps, which render much more quickly
than full atmospheric objects.
The Randomization of Flames is great if you have multiple emitters attached
to the same Phoenix Atmospheric. You can now randomize the fractals
for the emitters so they don't look exactly the same.
Phoenix 1.5 is available for $395 and can be ordered at www.digimation.com. Click here to view an interactive video showing you how Phoenix 1.5 works. This video is 47.4 MB in size and requires the TSCC codec to view.