(3ds max) Relinking particle shaders after import to another scene?

[Jussing]

So, I have different files for simulating different parts of my scene. Now I want to merge them into my master scene. And I can tell from the viewport the particles for foam and splashes are loaded, but they are not rendering.

I merged the objects:
- PhoenixLiquid
- PHXFoam001
- PHXFoam002
- PG [foam]
- PG [splashes]

I'm getting the "collecting particles" counter when rendering, so they should be there...

Anything I'm doing wrong?

/Jonas

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Try to increase the size of the particles from the Particle shaders - they are probably too small to show up.

[Jussing]

Hi Georgi,

but it's the same settings as in the original scene file, because I'm literally importing the same objects.

Let me demonstrate.

Render from the original scene file with no tampering: lots of foam



The same scene, deleted the 5 objects, saved under a new name, imported the 5 objects, and re-linked the cache:
Same water, same particle settings, no foam


Increasing the particle size by a factor 10 makes no difference.

Thanks,
/Jonas

[georgi.zhekov]

Does it make any difference if you go in your Particle shader and pick the particle groups again from the simulator?

[Jussing]

Thanks Georgi, but that made no difference.

/Jonas

[georgi.zhekov]

Can you send us the scene so we can take a look? If it's something confidential you can send it to support@chaosgroup.com

Thanks,

[Jussing]

Thanks Georgi, have done that now.

- Jonas

[Jussing]

The plot thickens... when I do it with a simple beer test, the particles are loaded, but offset in the scene:

1. create sphere
2. use default beer preset, and sim some frames
3. save under new file name, delete phoenix objects
4. re-merge phoenix objects
5. relink cache
6. render

Original sim and render -- foam matches liquid:


After re-linking:

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey,

Let me explain what the nodes do:
- The simulator loads caches, which can contain multiple particle systems.
- The Particle Shader, and other max nodes, including 3rd party plugins such as Frost, Stoke, etc, need to load these particle systems separately. For this, they need to be able to tell apart the foam from the splash from the mist, etc of the systems loaded by the simulator.
- This is why the simulator creates these hidden PG [] nodes, which represent each of the particle systems so they can be picked separately.
- The transforms of the PG nodes matter. This is where the particle systems loaded by the simulator are placed. If they don't coincide with the simulator's transform, then the mesh of the simulator and the particles won't coincide. I'd guess that this might be the issue in this situation?

Cheers!

[Jussing]

In my own tsunami example I have transformed (moved) the sim, but in the beer example above I did as little as possible to isolate the problem, so no transforms of any kind.

And now that I know what the problem is, I have located my tsunami foam:

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Checked your scene. As Svetlin said the transforms of the PG nodes matter.
The fix this - delete the PG nodes from your imported scene and from the Particle shader, pick the particle groups again from the simulator. Then it should render correctly.

[Jussing]

Thanks Georgi -- did you look at the beer example also? I didn't do any transforms there, yet both position and scale is off.

Also, I'm not quite sure I follow -- if I delete the PG notes I deleted, how can I select them from the simulator?

Thanks,
- Jonas

[georgi.zhekov]

If you delete the PG, then from the Particle Shader you press add for the Particle Systems and choose the simulator.
This will make new PG nodes in your scene with the correct transform.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

Jussing, did you get this solved?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Just a note - in the latest nightlies I've scrapped the old PG [] nodes and created a new type for them, so now they should be more robust and issues like the one from this thread should not happen anymore.

However, if you have old scenes that are not converting properly or you do get such issues with a scene built from scratch with a latest nightly, please ping me.