Bifrost Fluids Solve On server.

[sdeters]

We are running 3ds 2018.  Is it possible to solve the fluid simulation on a remote server?  Is This solve purely CPU based.  Kind of like running back burner for The Arnold rendering but solving the fluid component?  What are the different options for this?

[hagen.deloss]

Hi @sdeters,

Good to hear from you! I found a potentially helpful thread on this topic from late 2017 where Tom Hudson walks through some steps to render a fluid simulation to a network, here are the steps he outlines.

"First, in the "Render Settings" tab, select the solver you want to render and activate the Lock button:

Most importantly, each machine must be able to find the simulation files in the same path.  In my network, each machine has a mapped "S:" drive that points to the main "Simulation" folder on one of my servers.  All my simulations are placed in this folder (I have it set as the "Root Simulation Directory".

Then (and this is also critical) -- DO NOT use the <SceneName> or <ProjectName> tokens in the Cache Output File Pattern.  These work fine normally but when network rendering the filename is going to be different when sent to the network -- And then the network machines won't be able to find the simulation data.

So here are my settings for a scene I just tested:

You can see that the Root Directory is "S:" (Each network rendering machine has that same drive mapped to point to my simulation output folder on the server).

I use "NetworkScene" instead of the <FileName> token.

With these settings my renderings work properly."

I hope this helps, if not, I can do some further digging 😄

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[sdeters]

I am not wanting to render the fluid over the network.  Eventually I will need to do this.

But the actual Fluid solve, Running the fluid solver over the network.  Or should we just have one bad machine that will do all of the fluid solves. 

Thanks for the help, and like I mentioned I will probably reference that article you mention below.

[klankster · Accepted solution]

This is a good question -- We recognize that fluid simulation using networked computers (via Backburner or some other mechanism) is something users will want to do; unfortunately we have not been able to get this mechanism into the product yet.

The fluid simulation system is completely scriptable, though, so it should be possible to run a simulation on a networked system -- I will do some investigation and see if I can get some help from one of our team members for this and whip up something that will work for you. (Selfish disclaimer: I have several networked machines and would like to have this capability myself!)

-Tom

[klankster]

P.S. If you'd like to see this feature in the product, please go to the 3ds Max Ideas page and add a vote for this item: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/fluids-network-solver/idi-p/7450465

-Tom

[sdeters]

Thanks we just got a kick butt rendering server, and I would like to utilize the cores on this machine.  It would have 4 different nodes.  It would be nice to even run the solve on one of the nodes if possible.  What ever solution, it would run faster than my little 8 core workstation.

Thanks for the help, and thank for looking into this.

Shane

[klankster]

I know what you mean.  I have a rack here with 5 machines in it, one of which is a 64GB, 16-core Threadripper.  I use it for fluid sims and rendering and the networked simming using it would be great!

-Tom

[klankster · Accepted solution]

OK, I have a solution for you to try.

I've set up a simple Pre-Render script that you can use with a fluid simulation setup and Backburner.

Please watch the video at this link: https://vimeo.com/277464474 -- This shows the process that will get the job done.

To do this, use the script provided via download at http://max.klanky.com/scripts.htm and plug it into your Pre-Render Scripts entry as shown in the video.  This process will use a networked server to solve your simulation.  I've successfully used it on my 16-core AMD Threadripper server and a less-powerful Intel 4-core I7 server.

This is not the most elegant solution, but it will get the job done for you until an "Official" networked simulation process is available.

-Tom

[Marc_Auv]

For Deadline Submission:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/bifrost2deadline-submitter (not tested yet in 2019, but should work)

[sdeters]

Very cool, thanks for all of the help on this.  This made my Friday.  Enjoy the weekend.

[Steven.Lees-Smith]

@klankster is this still current for 2021 or is there a different way to do it in that version?

[klankster]

@Steven.Lees-Smith This should still work properly in Max 2021.

[Steven.Lees-Smith]

perfect, thank you.  With the way I am murdering my machine and having an older one sitting idle, may as well get it chipping in to do some of the work 🙂