As Venkatesh Kongathi, Principal VFX Developer at Capcom, explained, working with Houdini’s Pyro solver often means struggling to break up smooth, blobby shapes and add detail. The common approach, stacking disturbance, turbulence, and layered noise with masks, is slow, inconsistent, and prone to trial and error. What works in one simulation may fail in another, especially when resolution, sourcing, or velocities change. The result can be overly noisy, unnatural sims, or ones that are too soft and undefined.
To solve this problem, he developed a microsolver that reduces technical overhead and adapts automatically to resolution and speed changes, helping artists focus more on creativity.
To understand its potential, Venkatesh suggests first breaking up the left-side smoke column in the example file using only standard techniques. Aim for the best result and note the time it takes. Then, try the same using the microsolver, or apply it to an older project by removing traditional disturbance and turbulence setups. In terms of performance, it apparently behaves similarly to conventional microsolvers when using face-sampled velocities, and slightly slower when using center-sampled velocities.
