Maya Fluid Effects is a technology for realistically simulating and rendering fluid motion. Fluid Effects lets you create a wide variety of 2D and 3D atmospheric, pyrotechnic, space, and liquid effects. You can use the Fluid Effectssolvers to simulate these effects, or you can use fluid animated textures for more unique, distinguishing effects.
Fluid Effects also includes an ocean shader for creating realistic open water. You can float objects on the ocean surface and have those objects react to the motion of the water.
You can create the following types of effects with Fluid Effects:
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Realistic atmospheric effects, such as clouds, mist, fog, steam, and smoke.
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Pyrotechnics, such as fire, explosions, and nuclear blasts.
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Viscous fluids, such as molten lava and mud.
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Open water, such as calm or rough oceans with white caps and foam.
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To assist you in creating your own fluid effects, a set of example fluid files is included with Maya. These files contain the fluids, geometry, shaders, lights, and environments that let you quickly create the effects you want. Also included with the example fluid files are predefined initial states (or caches) that describe the initial starting point of fluid simulations (for example, a cloud), attribute presets that define the attribute settings for specific effects, and notes information on the example’s nodes that can help you determine how each example can be used. You can import these example files into your scene, play them, and render them without alteration, or you can modify them to customize the effects.
To access the example fluid files, initial states, and presets, select Fluid Effects > Get Fluid Example.
For information on how to use fluid examples, see Import Fluid examples.
To help you learn Fluid Effects, a Fluids Effects tutorial is included with Maya. The Fluid Effects tutorial is one of the many comprehensive tutorials in the Getting Started with Maya guide available at the Autodesk website.