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Ack! I just created a bunch of AUR files with the latest nightly (11/23) and they cannot be read into VRayVolumeGrid. They work fine in Phoenix nodes, but not in VolumeGrid nodes. They do not preview, and do not render, though the bounding box does update in size.
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Hey,
So when you load a cache, it might not use any RAM at all if all your previews are disabled, so it would only read the info you see in the Simulation rollout's Cache File Content box.
Otherwise, if any previews are loaded, the compressed grid data will go into RAM, and only the channels that need to be shown in the viewport will be decompressed. If your storage quality is highest and the data is uncompressed, then you will actually use less peak RAM because the data does not have to go in RAM in order to be decompressed. Apart from this - yes, it's about hard disk storage, it was never about RAM usage in the first place because it's assumed that in order for you to simulate these caches in the first place, you gotta have as much RAM plus more for all of the solver data that does not get written.
Right now there's no way to strip out channels from a cache via the Cache Converter, though it would be very easy to add one.
The backup fames will load a bit slower because of the storage reading time, but if any of the extra data is not used for restoring a simulation, it won't be slowing down the previews.
Svetlin Nikolov, Ex Phoenix team leadComment
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Sounds like you have an older volume grid. Check the changelog here and the previous ones too: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/PHX4MAX/4.30.00. We did several extensions to the AUR format, so older code does not know what to do with the new files.Originally posted by Joelaff View Post
There is no difference between the official Phoenix 4.30 and the nightly Phoenix though. Which V-Ray version do you use? Do you have the latest stable V-Ray?Svetlin Nikolov, Ex Phoenix team leadComment
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Meanwhile, I'm working on improving the auto reduction of the voxel and particle previews with a ton of grids in the viewport. A lot of interesting roadblocks popped up in the process, but now I seem to have something which works well and reduces properly when there are up to around 30-40 grids. Interestingly, just having 128 empty grids with no loaded cache is already pretty heavy on the viewport, so gotta see what's up there as well.
Will ping you when I know more...Svetlin Nikolov, Ex Phoenix team leadComment
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Alrighty, so in tomorrow's nightlies there will be one of a series of changes - if you just create a bunch of empty grids, they will still clog the viewport because each one will be asking Max about its parameters and will draw a bounding box, etc. So on my machine I could get 128 empty grids in Max drawing at 1 FPS, and now I have them drawing at 5 FPS. This would speed up drawing of grids with very high detail reduction that you could achieve via the Volume Grid Tools from earlier in this thread. Now to make auto reduction handle many grids as well...Svetlin Nikolov, Ex Phoenix team leadComment
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Yeah, I noticed that. Even with the triangle preview and the bounding box displayed it still gets slow.Originally posted by Svetlin.Nikolov View Post
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This is awesome! I will give it a shot.Originally posted by Svetlin.Nikolov View Post
Sorry for all the individual replies...Comment
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Just went through the history of the V-Ray stable and also verified it with a test with a fire and tapwater toolbar presets - the latest official and stable V-Ray should be missing only the latest AUR version which concerns only particles. This means that the VolumeGrid would load voxels but will not be able to load particles, but it's not supposed to load particles because it's a volume GRID anyway.Originally posted by Joelaff View Post
So I haven't been able to actually break it. Can you share a cache which is not working in the latest official V-Ray 5?
Thanks!Svetlin Nikolov, Ex Phoenix team leadComment
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Let me give it another go to be sure, but once I find one I will post it for you and send a link to support, referencing this thread.
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Is there some method to get shadows cast ON TO smoke from other objects to be less opaque? I can use two lights, one without a shadow, but this will of course be slower. Just didn't know if there was some shadow density I am missing.
Thanks.Comment
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Joe are you making the clouds in phoenix from scratch out of interest?Comment
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Yes. We simulated a bunch of random clouds of different types, and then picked a few and cloned them. Of course most of the clouds are not meant to be clouds in the sky. You the viewer are meant to standing on a cloud see off to the distance.Originally posted by squintnic View PostComment
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Svetlin.Nikolov the new nightly is a big improvement on viewport speed. Still not fast with a ton of simulator grids, but much better than it was, thanks.
It would be really nice if we could get better hit detection for selecting the volumes. Like if clicking on the closest little preview triangle would select the volume right under the mouse.
In other words, say you have four overlapping volumes in the triangle preview mode... it is hard to select the one you want. The bounding boxes can help if you only have a few, but they become quickly a jumbled mess with many volumes. I’d love to have the selection preview highlight, and the selection itself, be made by clicking on the actual smoke triangle preview. Basically, like selecting any other objects in Max.
To that end maybe there is a way to let the user set a viewport level of detail for the mesh mode preview. Kind of like turbo smooth with a separate viewport and render setting. Max seems pretty fast with actual meshes, especially if we could have them display much lower resolution.
Thanks for all the help.Comment
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ugh yess, making these selectable will make stuff even slower... gotta think about a way to make it happen.
The LOD for the Mesh is a hot topic already, adding another vote to it
Svetlin Nikolov, Ex Phoenix team leadComment
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