Ren JiBo, Effects Supervisor at Base FX, adds, "The interface is very intuitive.  I can make very simple changes to complex simulations, and see the results very quickly.  We have been using Houdini for most of our fluids, and this has brought us a new level of realism and control.  It's very efficient, and saving my team a lot of time on our shot work."

 

Dr. D Studios Invests in Naiad

Stockholm, Sweden (June 11, 2010). Exotic Matter is thrilled to announce that Sydney-based Dr. D Studios is the first animation studio to make a significant  investment in Naiad.  Dr. D joined the alpha test early on and its experienced team has provided invaluable feedback on both the simulator and the general framework.  Working with Dr. D's talented crew continues to be a great experience for Exotic Matter.  Dr. D. is using Naiad on its current animation projects.

Nicholas Yue, Head of R&D, Dr. D Studios, says, "It's been a pleasure working with a very responsive team. Exotic Matter is very aware of the business needs of studios in such a challenging market and strive to accommodate to the custom needs of different studios. They fully engaged with Dr. D Studios from the get go and still keep an open dialogue. We truly felt the collaborative partnership. It will be a hard act for other vendors to follow."

Gyuri Kiss, Visual Development Artist & FX TD at Dr. D Studios, comments, "I've been working with Naiad for a few months now and I have to say it is the fastest and most accurate fluid simulator I know (and a full dynamics engine soon). We need to simulate a large number of water-related shots. Naiad seems to be the best solution. I can simulate realistic fluids made from millions of particles in a very reasonable time, thanks to Naiad's great second-generation FLIP solver.  The interface is easy to understand, intuitive and artist friendly.  Working with Marcus is just a pleasure. He is very responsive and steers the software development towards a real production gem."

Jesse Erickson, Naiad TD at Dr. D Studios, adds, "I've been extremely impressed by the speed and stability of Naiad,  especially by its ability to efficiently handle multiple millions of particles. The fluid motion looks beautiful; it has a solid set of field manipulation tools, it does great viscous liquids and you can keep cranking up the particle resolution without worrying about it blowing up. One of the best features it has is dynamic grid tiling which only puts grids where you need them and frees you from the constraints of a fluid box. Simulations run quicker than anything I've seen thanks to great multi-threading. It's pretty satisfying to see 8 processors firing at 100% during a sim."

 

Important Looking Pirates Chooses Naiad

Stockholm, Sweden (June 4, 2010).  Exotic Matter is pleased to announce that Stockholm-based VFX facility Important Looking Pirates has invested heavily in Naiad licenses. ILP has been testing and using Naiad since the pre-alpha days and was the first facility to complete several TV commercials using Naiad as the sole fluid simulation tool.

Niklas Jacobson, Co-owner/Visual Effects Supervisor, ILP, says, "We are relying on Naiad as our primarily fluids solver, and have successfully completed five commercials using the alpha and beta versions. Naiad Studio is a very nice and open tool, and it truly is a new way of working with dynamics.  We strongly believe in the future of Naiad, and we put a lot of effort into building internal R&D around it. We are very much looking forward trying our new volumetric renderer together with Naiad."

Yafei Wu, Co-owner/Head of 3D, ILP, comments, "On top of its flexible architecture and node graph, one of the main reasons we love Naiad is for the stability. It just won't go unstable no matter what we throw at it. It's a beast!"

 

Blackginger Invests in Naiad Licenses

Stockholm, Sweden (May 28, 2010).  Exotic Matter is pleased to announce that Blackginger, the award-winning Cape Town-based VFX facility, has made a significant investment in Naiad licenses. Blackginger joined the alpha test early on and has consistently provided valuable feedback during the development of the Naiad software.  Blackginger is currently finishing two fluids-heavy commercials using Naiad and is looking at using it next on a major motion-picture.

Hilton Treves, Visual Effects Supervisor and Owner of Blackginger, says, "Every once in a while a product comes along that changes the status quo. Naiad is this product. We've integrated Naiad into our pipeline seamlessly; it's the fastest solver out there."

 

Framestore Purchases Site License of Naiad

Stockholm, Sweden (May 21, 2010).  Exotic Matter is pleased to announce that Academy Award winning VFX facility Framestore, based in London, has purchased a site license of Naiad, making it the first company in Europe to use Naiad in film production.  Framestore is currently using Naiad on several projects and is in the process of making Naiad the core of their new advanced dynamics and FX pipeline.

Martin Preston, head of R&D at Framestore, says, "We've been involved with Marcus and his team since Naiad's inception. The flexibility of the software, the production-minded attitudes of its developers and their responsiveness to feature requests has meant we're relying on it for an ever increasing portion of our simulation needs."

Christophe Meslin, head of System Technology at Framestore, comments, "Framestore is delighted to be one of the very first companies to have signed a worldwide site license agreement for Naiad. Water simulation is the next big thing to crack and to streamline and we believe Exotic Matter is heading in the right direction."

 

Weta Digital Purchases Site License of Naiad

Stockholm, Sweden (April 8th, 2010). Continuing its tradition of being an early adoptor of new graphics technology, Weta Digital, the multi-award winning VFX facility based in New Zealand, has purchased a site-license of Naiad, which was the foundation for the most complicated fluid dynamics shots on James Cameron's Avatar. This also makes Weta the first VFX facility to employ Naiad in a motion picture that has been released in theatres. Weta has had a very positive influence on the development direction of the Naiad software and is using Naiad on its slate of upcoming projects.

Sebastian Sylwan, CTO of Weta Digital, Ltd., said, "We worked very closely with Exotic Matter since the very first days that Naiad became available as an early alpha, as it was the only off-the-shelf solution to effectively scale to the problem size of the simulations needed on Avatar. The fact that Naiad is a hybrid solver allowed us to build a flexible post-simulation framework that dealt with both particles and level sets as needed. We're excited to be part of Naiad's ongoing evolution."

"The simulations are very realistic, we tried other approaches, but Naiad worked best for us", says Diego Trazzi, Lead Naiad TD at Weta.