phoenixfd simulation to render

[Lenstudio]

Hi guys,

i'm having trouble rendering a water animation with backburner. What's the procedure to render a phoenix fd simulation? I tried to export it as a animated proxy with vray mesh export, but re-importing something was wrong: it was like a mini-dot that i couldn't rescale or even see in preview. Thanks in advance,

FF

[Ivaylo Katev]

you don't need to export it as proxy (this functionality was broken in the official build), render directly the phoenix object, you can install as many phoenix copies as you need for rendering.
see the instructions here for distributed rendering, it should work with backburner too.

[Lenstudio]

I read it and maybe i'm missing something. Does it mean that i have only to simulate the animation in RAM, then Phoenix creates a cache file that i have to load from the other PCs?

Thanks for your help!

P.s. right now i'm rendering in local as i saved the templates in a .apr file and opened in the other pcs without resimulating as a whole. But that's not a solution for a net-render obviously...

[Ivaylo Katev]

you have to do nothing at the remote machines, they will load the cache files automatically (if the files are visible)
did you render the result at the local machine successfully ?

[Lenstudio]

I'm trying right now with the presaved template and it works fine, but when i tried on backburner previously the animation didn't start in the other pc, even if i open locally the scene again the simulation gets lost. Maybe i have to assign that cache file manually, don't know...

[Ivaylo Katev]

where are placed the cache files and what is set in the input path?

[Neilg]

what always trips me up is setting the input path - it defaults to search in the same folder the max file is in so even though you can see it locally, when it gets sent to backburner it looks in that local folder and cant find the sim files.

[Ivaylo Katev]

Yes, this is frequently asked question, but we have serious reasons to avoid the declaring the cache files as assets (that will transfer them automatically)

[Neilg]

Is there no way to have it automatically use the full file path, rather than the 'look in this folder' symbol it currently uses as default?
It's no issue once you've done a couple of sims, i'm just curious.

[Ivaylo Katev]

using full file path makes the scene not portable, i send you a scene, you run it and nothing will be rendered.
we are considering some automation, based on the vray's asset system, that can handle some of the situations keeping us to not using the max asset system.

[squintnic]

..
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fixed it!

[Da_elf]

wasnt there a file path fixer plugin out there? and does it work for pheonix? i know it works for imaps and vrmaps

[Ivaylo Katev]

first time hear about such a plugin

[Da_elf]

http://www.colinsenner.com/scripts/relink-bitmaps

[MoonDoggie]

I can add it to Relink Bitmaps for next release. If it's urgent I can get it finished this weekend.