Next Limit Talks about RFCore for CINEMA 4D

Have you heard about RealFlow Core? Gus Sanchez, the RealFlow Product Manager at Next Limit Technologies, leaked a piece of news in our interview at NAB this week. First, check out this video to hear what Gus had to say. Since this was almost mentioned in passing without many details, you might’ve missed just how awesome this news is. So after this interview, we reached out to Gus for some more details on the new RealFlow Core for CINEMA 4D (RFCore|C4D). Although it's early, Gus shared some details on this exciting new technology. “This is the first version, so one thing at a time,” Sanchez says when asked how the functionality will be rolling out for RFCore. “There’s a lot of potential to grow in the future. Some features will come to future standalone versions that’ll also be translated into the plug-ins while others won’t.” "We're still in phase one of development for RFCore," Sanchez adds. “But things should move pretty fast in the coming months. Initial plans are moving in a direction to include the new fluid solvers that we will have in RealFlow 2015.” The new fluid solvers Sanchez is referring to is a rewritten SPH solver as well as a new PBF (position-based fluids) solver. Another exciting feature to look forward to is the plan to allow RFCore to take advantage of the GPU for simulations. “I don’t think we should add all that the standalone version can do,” Sanchez explains when asked whether or not the full functionality of RealFlow will be planned for RFCore. “Basically because we’re trying to simplify and get the users a simpler, non-TD experience. RealFlow standalone can do a lot of powerful things that we may be alienating due to complexity, such as C++ plug-ins, RealFlow Graphs and even some Hybrido workflows.” “Some GPU, OpenCL for now, is in the cards for both RealFlow 2015 and this new plug-in,” Sanchez comments. “But we can’t promise they’ll be included on day one. RFCore|C4D will also include the new VDB meshing algorithms that are coming in RealFlow 2015, but they may come wrapped within the RealFlow RenderKit (RFRK) tools that’ll also be included.” The next phase of development for RFCore will start with the team at Next Limit harnessing the power of the fluid technologies they already have running inside of CINEMA 4D and getting them to work with integrated CINEMA 4D tools, such as MoGraph. “At the moment there isn’t much to show,” Sanchez tells us of RFCore. “But hopefully we’ll start sharing some internal tests soon. Once we have something that we can share with C4D experts, we’ll get them onboard since we want to make sure that the final product reflects what they really need, and has workflows that maximize productivity and ease of use.” “What we’re aiming for,” Sanchez predicts, “is for RFCore to become the fluids tool inside of CINEMA 4D, and a tool that any artist can use, not just fluid TDs.” Since CINEMA 4D has a few different package options that target a wide range of users, from the CINEMA 4D Lite that comes with After Effects CC to Visualize, Broadcast and, of course, the full CINEMA 4D Studio version, it’s only natural to wonder if RFCore|C4D will be coming to the CINEMA 4D package you use. “Currently we’re developing for Studio,” Sanchez says. “But we’ll try to see how many of those flavors we can support. Ideally all of them, but I’d imagine it can get tricky in CINEMA 4D Lite. I’d love to have it working since it’d make the After Effects artist’s life easier, too. We’ll do whatever is in our hands, but then again, if it’s possible. If we don’t have it [working in different versions of CINEMA 4D] on day one, we’ll try to get it for later builds.” There is currently no pricing information or release date for RFCore|C4D to be released, although. With RealFlow 2015 expected to release in a few months and this news of RFCore|C4D, the team at Next Limit has certainly been busy. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.