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

Desde los comienzos de esta aventura empresarial, y pese a tener su sede en Madrid, su orientación fue unívocamente internacional. Pese a que el primer producto, RealFlow, se orientó al mercado de los efectos digitales, con los ojos puestos en Hollywood, Next Limit nunca ha partido de un concepto exportación, ya que todas sus soluciones se han dirigido de una manera natural a un mercado mundial. A partir de ahí, las nuevas tecnologías y los medios de comunicación, especialmente Internet, han ayudado sobremanera a contar con clientes en todos los rincones del planeta.

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 es un software simulador de física orientado estratégicamente al mercado de efectos digitales. Este producto independiente, ya que no se trata de un plugin, permite crear escenas complejas en las que los elementos naturales, especialmente los fluidos, tienen todo el protagonismo: la lava de un volcán en erupción, un mar en plena tempestad, la inundación de una ciudad, las salpicaduras de sangre milimétricamente estudiadas, la destrucción de una fortaleza… todo el posible. RealFlow simula la interacción de materiales sólidos con fluidos, tal y como las leyes físicas dictan, o incluso permitiendo la modificación de esas leyes para crear efectos más artísticos. Cuenta con una tecnología innovadora en constante evolución desarrollada por el grupo de ingenieros de Next Limit. Desde su lanzamiento en 1998, RealFlow ha ido cada vez más allá habiendo desarrollado hasta la fecha un total de cinco versiones.

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.

Siendo HP una marca de confianza para Next Limit, es importante destacar la facilidad de uso a la hora de trabajar con estas máquinas así como configurarlas, gestionar los perfiles de trabajo adecuados para cada equipo de desarrollo y mantener una carga de trabajo óptima. Gestionamos las máquinas de la granja de nodos HP a través de los paquetes de gestión de red de cada producto, en el caso de RealFlow ejecutan instancias del software controlados desde un Manager para conseguir simulaciones más complejas con varias máquinas calculando de forma cooperativa. Igualmente, en el caso de su software Maxwell Render para render de iluminación, la tecnología de HP les permite lanzar un trabajo de simulación en varios nodos y obtener el resultado en el menor tiempo posible. En ambos casos el hardware HP responde de manera excelente y con una tasa de fallos prácticamente inexistente.

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.

The co-founder of Next Limit maintains that "simulation is something so hard to move that great processing capacity is needed. At Next Limit we have two formulas for working with hardware. One is the individual daily work of each person in development, and the other is the rendering and calculation machines on the farm. In the first case, reliability and resistance do not matter so much. In the second, we have looked for a brand that responds to us since we continually test all products, subjecting them to stress both at the machine and software level. It is very important to have machines in which trust because if you give a calculation order that is going to take three days you cannot afford to return from a weekend and find that you have thrown away two days... For us, the composition of the machine is vital in terms of its robustness and reliability. When you have a machine continuously subjected to stress without resetting for two years, that is when HP's prestige is noticeable.

Water journey, an example in creative work with fluids

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