Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 4, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Effex can be used to create effects such as fire, smoke, explosions and fluid simulations. Underneath is a physically based simulation engine.
The most important innovation in version 2.5 is the ability to interact with rigid-body dynamics — in both directions. Navié brings rigid bodies and fluids together and enables users to create rigid-body dynamics quickly and easily using the Bullet Physics Engine. A rigid-body object can be influenced by a fluid and vice versa. Manufacturer Navié emphasises that this makes it possible, for example, to realistically simulate scenes such as ships floating on water or cars being swept away by floods, based on physical properties such as mass and density.
New surface-tension models are also available with the update. According to Navié, these are particularly useful when effects are to be simulated on a small scale. "Think big" is not the motto here; instead, miniature effects such as water bubbles and water droplets are intended to be simulated more realistically, based on the latest algorithms.
The Pipeline Viewer introduces a new tool for controlling the entire simulation pipeline. This is helpful because it now shows when, for example, a node is evaluated during the simulation. This makes complex simulation setups easier to set up and control.
Version 2.5 comes with an API for third-party developers. Read&write access to the most important structures in Effex is enabled. This concerns particles, channels, volumes and so on. External renderers or plug-ins can therefore now easily support Effex’s simulation data. It is also now possible to create custom plug-ins and constraints that extend the Effex framework.
The new features also include improved viscosity for gases. High-Quality Viscosity is no longer a separate Liquid Dynamics node and has been converted into a function that can be applied to all Fluid Dynamics. Viscosity can therefore now also be used in smoke and fire simulations, which in turn increases the realism of the simulation. In this way, Navié wants to move closer to natural phenomena, for example by reducing viscosity at higher temperatures.
Another function concerns editing the final fluid mesh, which receives the finishing touch with a Mesh Smoother. This visually improves a fluid mesh by giving it better topology through a better distribution of mesh polygons — which in turn improves rendering quality.
The update also brings speed improvements and a menu revision. Further information about the update can be found on the manufacturer’s website.
Manufacturer Navié offers various licence models for Effex 2.5.
The price for a single licence is 990 euros including VAT. An unrestricted licence-server version costs 4,999 euros. A floating licence is still being worked on. An educational variant is already available, however, and costs 199 euros. An overview of the upgrade options can be found here.
Manufacturer Navié is based in Magdeburg, incidentally. Behind it are Samir Kharchi and Nancy Martin, both of whom studied industrial design there.
Here are some tutorials for Effex 2.5:
Simulation Pipeline
Interface
Grids Fundamentals
Particles Fundamentals
