Next Limit: breaking limits in fluid simulation with HP

Any effects simulation, but to an even greater extent, if possible, fluid simulations, implies being very clear about the system requirements and the performance that these can provide in relation to the software involved. In these complex processes, HP technology helps Next Limit break the limits of physics of a company whose RealFlow solution won a technical Oscar in 2008 and today has become a unique solution very present in the industrial field, video games and, of course, cinema and advertising.

Founded in 1998 by engineers Ignacio Vargas and Víctor González, the development of the first fluid simulator for the world of digital effects under the name RealFlow positioned Next Limit in a world-class reference. Since the development of RealFlow, which, as its founders admit, began as “almost like a game,” new advanced software tools, unique in their kind, would arrive, such as the Maxwell Render light simulator or XFlow, a tool for fluids aimed at engineers and scientists.

Throughout its successful history, Next Limit's staff has been growing with engineers and experts in various areas of simulation who are committed to creating new products through a continuous research and development model, achieving a solid reputation in the creation of innovative software, investing close to 50% of its budget in R&D. This would be one of the keys to their strong expansion and is that, as their name reflects, they always advance looking for new limits in which research and innovation are the best remedy to overcome any crisis and maintain long-term stability.

Víctor González, co-founder of Next Limit, told Panorama Audiovisual that the company's commitment to R&D, "far from an obligation, is a DNA that we carry within us. By vocation, we have always wanted to innovate by proposing R&D out of conviction oriented towards sales."

International projection

From the beginning of this business adventure, and despite having its headquarters in Madrid, its orientation was unequivocally international. Although the first product, RealFlow, was aimed at the digital effects market, with its eyes set on Hollywood, Next Limit has never started from an export concept, since all its solutions have been naturally aimed at a global market. From there, new technologies and media, especially the Internet, have greatly helped to have clients in all corners of the planet.

Next Limit also has an international workforce (approximately 30% are not Spanish) and this allows us to convey the sense of a global company to the rest of the staff. Many of the meetings at Next Limit are even held in English, almost the official language of the company. Currently, the company has a delegate in Los Angeles for management and commercial support of the RealFlow product, thus providing a service close to the hundreds of production and post-production companies that are concentrated in California.

RealFlow, an Oscar technology

RealFlow is a physics simulator software strategically oriented to the digital effects market. This independent product, since it is not a plugin, allows you to create complex scenes in which natural elements, especially fluids, take center stage: the lava of an erupting volcano, a stormy sea, the flooding of a city, millimetrically studied splashes of blood, the destruction of a fortress... everything possible. RealFlow simulates the interaction of solid materials with fluids, just as physical laws dictate, or even allowing the modification of those laws to create more artistic effects. It has innovative technology in constant evolution developed by the Next Limit group of engineers. Since its launch in 1998, RealFlow has gone further and further, having developed a total of five versions to date.

In 2008, RealFlow won a Technical Achievement Award from the North American Film Academy for being the first fluid simulation technology for the film industry, an award that, without a doubt, has helped this solution become a simulation standard in this market.
Good examples of this are the numerous films in which RealFlow has participated: The Lord of the Rings, Poseidon, 300, 2012, Avatar, Ice Age, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Constantine, Benjamin Button and many others. Other smaller studios also use it to bring to life the most fabulous animations both in film and in advertising.

Víctor González states that "RealFlow is the best reflection of what we want to do, it is not so much the cornerstone but rather one side of the coin. It arose from the idea of ​​making a new product, applying mathematics and physical concepts to simulate reality, that is where our interest in video games comes from, the evolution of graphic systems, virtual reality... everything is aimed at creating concepts simulated by computer."

At this moment, Next Limit is already working on the 2012 version and, as Víctor González comments, “we continue working to make the product do more complex things, before it was glasses of water and now it is tsunamis or giant explosions that our clients ask for.

From when we started to today, all processes have accelerated between 1000 and 10000 times. We are children of the hardware that exists at all times... There are many things that we know will be done in the future. Projects that today take two days to render, in the near future will be in real time, as machines advance. We try to stay up to date with the latest on the market. With companies like Intel or HP We have always had a close relationship so that they send us prototypes to test the technology ahead of what is to come... in this way, the product does not become obsolete since it adapts to the evolution of hardware...".

I work with HP

Any effects simulation, but to an even greater extent, if possible, fluid simulations, implies being very clear about the system requirements and the performance that these can provide in relation to the software involved. Running RealFlow simulations on HP systems gives Next Limit the reliability, power and performance necessary to carry out such complex processes.

Since HP is a trusted brand for Next Limit, it is important to highlight the ease of use when working with these machines as well as configuring them, managing the appropriate work profiles for each development team and maintaining an optimal workload. We manage the machines in the HP node farm through the network management packages of each product. In the case of RealFlow, they execute instances of the software controlled from a Manager to achieve more complex simulations with several machines calculating cooperatively. Likewise, in the case of its Maxwell Render software for lighting rendering, HP technology allows them to launch a simulation job on several nodes and obtain the result in the shortest time possible. In both cases, the HP hardware responds excellently and with a practically non-existent failure rate.

For this type of work, Next Limit recommends using fast and powerful processors, since it directly affects rendering times. Additionally, if you are working with large scenes, it will also be necessary to use large amounts of RAM. For this reason, on their own farm where they carry out the most demanding tests of their technology, they have taken these needs into account by installing HP equipment with great results in intensive calculations. Thanks to the HP farm that Next Limit has, both RealFlow fluid simulations and their renders, for which they use Maxwell Render, are no longer a headache.

The chosen workstations are the HP Z600. These are very fast machines with 2.40Gh Intel “These machines are pure power and offer maximum reliability without problems,” says González.

Another reason that has led Next Limit to work with HP is to have a power higher than the average for its category and a long useful life that allows launching a simulation in parallel or carrying out several simulations in parallel.

El cofundador de Next Limit sostiene que “la simulación es algo tan duro de mover que se necesita una gran capacidad de procesamiento. En Next Limit tenemos dos fórmulas de trabajo con hardware. Una es el trabajo diario individual de cada persona en el desarrollo, y otra las máquinas de render y cálculo en granja. En el primer caso no importa tanto la fiabilidad y resistencia. En el segundo, hemos buscado una marca que nos responda ya que probamos continuamente todos los productos sometiéndolos a estrés tanto a nivel de máquina como de software. Es muy importante tener máquinas en las que confiar ya que si das una orden de cálculo que va a tardar tres días no te puedes permitir el lujo de volver de un fin de semana y encontrar que has tirado a la basura dos días… Para nosotros es vital la composición de la máquina en cuanto a su robustez y fiabilidad. Cuando tienes una máquina sometida continuamente a estrés sin resetear dos años es cuando el prestigio de HP se nota”.

Viaje del agua, todo un ejemplo en el trabajo creativo con fluidos

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1piI5x6m4Eo[/youtube]