Animate Chaos Scatter

[LeePuznowski]

I have a chaos scatter object applied to an animated object (only position changes) in 3dsmax 2025. I'm trying to export this to a vrscene to be rendered in Vantage. The Scatter is not animated anymore in the vrscene. Is there a way to export the Scatter animated?

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi, thanks for posting. We have this issue logged as a new feature request in our system (LAV-1215). I will link your thread to it and update the priority.

[LeePuznowski]

Also maybe it's possible to optimize the exported vrscene better. Somehow keeping instances would be beneficial. As of now it exports each instance separately causing massive file sizes (30-40 Gigs in some cases) this is unmanageable in Vantage.
The only option for me in these situations is rendering directly from max as it retains the Scatter and keeps it very efficient. This is not ideal as I am trying to render from our render server.

[vladimir_krastev]

Somehow keeping instances would be beneficial. As of now it exports each instance separately causing massive file sizes

We are working on upgrading the Scatter export and the goal is to reduce file sizes of the vrscene and quicken the export. There is already a lot of progress on this task but I can not share anything more. We will keep you informed about this feature when it arrives in a release build.

[LeePuznowski]

Great to hear. Another anomoly I've encountered with Scatter. I'll post here since it's still under the same context of an animated object with Chaos Scatter. When I activate "Look at" and use a target object on a Chaos Scatter that is applied to an animated/deformed object, it causes the instances to randomly move in position (I believe in the direction of the object normals). This causes a jitter-like effect when I render out with Vantage. Only when I deactivate the "Look at" does it stop. I do have Temporal consistency activated. It only happens when "Look at" is active. The look at object is also animated.

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi LeePuznowski,

Temporal consistency in Scatter is not currently supported in Vantage and that is why you are seeing those shuffling in the scattered objects. You would get the same result if you had Collisions enabled and the scattered objects were animated. We do plan to add support for in in the future(LAV-1812)

Best regards,
Alexander

[LeePuznowski]

Thanks for the quick reply. Looking forward to using Vantage more and more.
One more quick question as I was unable to find the info. Does Vantage support the Chaos Scatter Surface Color Texmap? Or is there a way to find a work-around for it in the meantime?

[Alexander.Atanasov]

No, the Chaos Scatter Surface Color Texmap is not yet supported (LAV-1964) and unfortunately I cannot think of a way to workaroud it. I have a question though about the shifting of the instances with the Look at target: what V-Ray for 3ds Max are you using, are you in Live link when this happens or you export an animated vrscene, and can you send a video of the shifting that is happening?

Best regards,
Alexander

[LeePuznowski]

OK, too bad. The workout was tedious. I had to duplicate the Scatter for each color (I settled with 7 colors total) and use a map in the Scale % for each. Then color each instance for each Scatter differently. Which means I have 7 Scatters to do the job of 1.
I'm using the most current Vray with the most current 3dsmax. I am in Live link, but I only first noticed the shifting due to the Look at target when I rendered out an image sequence from Vantage. I rendered directly through 3dsmax as the vrscene was getting too large (30+ Gigs). The scene is using a high amount of instances in a Chaos Scatter as it's a macro shot of cloth fibers. I'll see if I can get a link of the video to you soon.