PhoenixFD with Mental Ray compatibility ?

[simipanda]

Hello,

I'm currently in the process of pitching PhoenixFD plugin to my client for wake simulation. We are currently using Mental Ray as our render engine (3ds Max Design), so I would like to find out if these two are compatible for infinity ocean texture, foam and splash materials etc? I tried to test this, but it didn't work.

We are also keen to be using Vray if budget allows, so your answer could sway our client's mind if Mental Ray isn't compatible with PhoenixFD.

Thank you for your time.

[Ivaylo Katev]

you can use the ocean rendering mode, and the ocean texture as displacement, with the trick that you have to set it in the displacement slot before selection of mental ray as render engine, because it hides the ocean texture from the texture list.
however, you can't use any atmospheric object of phoenix, that means you will be not able to use our foam shader (neither the smoke and fire abilities). you can render the foam with scanline and add it in compositing, if this is ok for you, then you can use phoenix.
here is the result of mental ray rendering

[simipanda]

Thank you for the explanation Ivaylo,

I did try to do the mental ray conversion after I did my vray test first, so I could see the Phoenix displacement texture (although as you said not on the texture list when right clicking in Slate editor). However the ocean still didn't render...perhaps I was doing something else wrong.

So do you mean I would have to do two separate passes, one with let's say a boat rendered in mental ray with sea etc., then another with just foam on it's own in scanline? If so, this would definitely mean we need to get Vray for efficiency. (Hooray!)

I'm afraid I cannot see the attached image as I haven't got full access to the forum...

Thank you,
Simona

[Ivaylo Katev]

yes, the foam does not appear in mental ray, it just does not support the max atmospheres.