Output vdb

[johnnelsonvfx]

Can Phoenix FD output VDB files to use with the vray volume grid?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Negative, it's in the TODO list though.

But if you have Phoenix nightlies, why would you render in the volume grid? They are the same piece of code and everything apart from a couple of defaults is the same.

[vlado]

But if you have Phoenix nightlies, why would you render in the volume grid? They are the same piece of code and everything apart from a couple of defaults is the same.

For example because you have a render farm and don't want to install Phoenix FD on all machines there? Whereas the volume grid comes already with the V-Ray install. Also if you do rendering on the cloud or a commercial render farm where Phoenix FD might not be available. Although, in that case, one can probably use .aur files just as well.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Yup, and aur files are generally smaller too.

Not sure though if bothering to export, share and substitute Phoenix with VolumeGrids in the scenes will be a smaller task than installing Phoenix the same way V-Ray's silent install would install V-Ray.

Anyway, @johnnelsonvfx, you sure have options to choose from

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Btw, if you do choose to use a volume grid, you can transfer your settings from Phoenix by saving a render preset to file from the top of the Rendering panel, so that you don't have to copy those manually.

[johnnelsonvfx]

Yes this is exactly the reasoning behind my question. we have limited lic for phoenix fd and a smaller farm so for our shows we do have to use cloud rendering.

thank you

[johnnelsonvfx]

Thank you! Will Do!

[johnnelsonvfx]

Further Question to this. Lets say i wanted to separate my smoke pass and my particle pass so comp can deal with it separately. currently we use LPM, so we have to duplicate the Phoenix fd into two different grids with the options disabled for smoke and particles on in pass one, and for the second pass smoked enabled and particles off. I am not sure how to make a logical render pass with just using one Phoenix fd simulation and enabling and disabling features per pass. Do you know of any better options for this?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Since V-Ray 3.40.01 and in the Phoenix nightlies since March 26, we got the Multimatte render element working, so you could try using it to avoid duplicating simulators. Note that you have to render in "Volumetric Geometry" mode for most render elements to work (or Geometry mode in the PHXFoam shader). This mode is generally slower and does not support Approximate scattering, so you could switch to that just for outputting any RE and then go back to Volumetric mode.

Btw, just a node on non-cloud rendering - Phoenix will render without checking for a license - the license is needed only when simulating.

[johnnelsonvfx]

I had asked my software engineer about the nightlies and he was unable to find the location of the downloads for the nightlies. Do you know where they may be? They didn't seem to be on chaos group Phoenix FD download page.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

They are located here: https://nightlies.chaosgroup.com/main#/phoenix2

If you don't see them, then you need to send a mail to support@chaosgroup.com and ask for Phoenix 2.2 nightly build access for your username and you'll be granted access within a day or two.

Cheers!