Exotic Matter recently announced the release of Naiad, the highly anticipated high end fluid dynamics and simulation software.
Naiad’s dynamics solver and simulation framework capable of producing animations of dynamic bodies such as liquids (including large and small bodies of water, breaking waves, and splashes and foam) and gases (including fire, smoke and explosions). Naiad also has full two-way coupling of rigid bodies to fluids.
Exoticmatter NAIAD Shark project from Igor Zanic on Vimeo.
Exoticmatter NAIAD Ship – Ocean from Igor Zanic on Vimeo.
Exoticmatter NAIAD City flood from Igor Zanic on Vimeo.
Exotic Matter does note that Naiad is more than just a software package, it is:
- a description of a simulation expressed as a graph: the Naiad Graph
- an interface specification used to construct a Naiad Graph: the Naiad Interface
- a plug-in API allowing users to write custom nodes in the Naiad Graph
- a software package which conforms to the Naiad Interface and runs the simulation described by a Naiad Graph
- an open-source software package allowing an artist to interactively construct a Naiad Graph using a 3D GUI front-end
- a standard file-format for storing the results of a Naiad simulation, called the EMP format.
In a past post, Naiad was featured at FxGuide as the technology behind the tools of Avatar, with part 2 looking at Exotic Matter’s Naiad which was used for the fluid simulations in the Neytiri “leaf drinking shot”
The annual licensing fee for Naiad is 50 000 SEK (about $7,400 USD / 5,500 EUR) per license. Support is included during each year the product is licensed.
Every 5th license is free. This means that if you always license in bundles of 5, the annual licensing fee per license is reduced to 40 000 SEK (about $6,000 USD / 4,400 EUR).
