Converting abc/bin/prt files to vrmesh

[Moriah]

Hello,
I'm doing some simulations in realflow and i would like to render the particles in vray 3.0, instead of using krakatoa. Is there any way to convert alembic/bin/prt files to a vrmesh file and render the particles inside vray? I've tried the ply2vrmesh but i dont have any control in the particle size inside max. Plus it only works with alembic, bin file gives a ID: fabada error and no support for prt as far as i know. The advantage of the prt is that i already have done some iterations, so instead of 200k particles, i have 200 million. http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/imag...particles.html I'm really interested on this, but i don't have phoenix fd. Any other way to do it? And if i did get phoenix fd eventually could i turn a 200k particle simuation into 200 million and bring inside vray 3.0 to render?

Hope i was clear enough.

Thanks

[vlado]

With ply2vrmesh, you can use the -particleWidthMultiplier option to change the particle size for Alembic particles. We don't support particles from bin files for ply2vrmesh yet. There is prt support in the latest nightly builds, not sure about the official one - will check.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Moriah]

Thanks for the clarification vlado. I was trying to find the ply2vrmesh nightly build in the downloads section so i could try the prt conversion, but no success. It doesn't even list vray nightly builds. How can i access them?

Thank you

[tashko.zashev]

Thanks for the clarification vlado. I was trying to find the ply2vrmesh nightly build in the downloads section so i could try the prt conversion, but no success. It doesn't even list vray nightly builds. How can i access them?

Thank you

Hi Moriah,

Please send a request to our sales department for nightly build access ( sales.software@chaosgroup.com)

[samuel_bubat]

But you are aware that you can load .abc files natively as vrayproxy without converting them in the first place ? Also wihtin the proxy you can control the particle size.

[Moriah]

Email sent tashko, thank you.

Yes Samuel, problem is that the alembic files come directly from realflow and aren't partitioned, regarding the particle size that option was greyed out for some reason. And as far as i know i can't convert prt to alembic.

[Moriah]

So i just tested out the latest nightly build and successfully converted a prt file to vrmesh. Problem is that the particle size (even on point render mode) is too big. Is there any way to fix this inside vray? Or only when converting using the -particleWidthMultiplier?

[vlado]

So i just tested out the latest nightly build and successfully converted a prt file to vrmesh. Problem is that the particle size (even on point render mode) is too big. Is there any way to fix this inside vray? Or only when converting using the -particleWidthMultiplier?

For the moment, with .vrmesh files, you can only do this during the conversion with the -particleWidthMultiplier setting. We should look into the possibility of doing this in 3ds max/Maya...

Best regards,
Vlado

[Moriah]

Thanks, this is looking like a really great tool that could make vray a particle renderer too. Only problem i found so far with the converter is that i was converting a 20 frame .prt sequence each frame was about 1.6gb and the ply2vrmesh converter is crashing on the 3rd frame all the time (yes the prt is fine in that frame). So my guess is that its too big for it to handle at the moment. It just says "ply2vrmesh stopped working".

[vlado]

Thanks, this is looking like a really great tool that could make vray a particle renderer too. Only problem i found so far with the converter is that i was converting a 20 frame .prt sequence each frame was about 1.6gb and the ply2vrmesh converter is crashing on the 3rd frame all the time (yes the prt is fine in that frame). So my guess is that its too big for it to handle at the moment. It just says "ply2vrmesh stopped working".

Eh, that's odd, 1.6 GB is not that much really - we've converted much larger files. If you can find a way to send me that .prt file to vlado@chaosgroup.com it will be very helpful - we can provide you with FTP details to upload it.

Also, you can convert each frame to a separate .vrmesh file, f.e. frame_0000.vrmesh, frame_0001.vrmesh etc - then in the VRayProxy object you can specify the name as frame_####.vrmesh and V-Ray will replace the #### with the current frame number.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Moriah]

Saving each frame in a separate vrmesh file worked, thanks!

Now i'm having another issue, i wanted to render the particles as points instead of spheres, but for some reason it isn't respecting vraylights properly, not even hdris. Same light position, sphere mode renders fine respecting shadows and all that, point renders black. i have to put the light really close for it to render, but even then its mostly a gradient, not really doing light and shadow parts. Any ideas? Or is the point render still a very wip thing?

[vlado]

Same light position, sphere mode renders fine respecting shadows and all that, point renders black. i have to put the light really close for it to render, but even then its mostly a gradient, not really doing light and shadow parts. Any ideas? Or is the point render still a very wip thing?

Can you show me? Or even better, get me an example to vlado@chaosgroup.com ? This works fine in our tests.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Moriah]

Sent both the renders and the file to you. Thanks

[vlado]

So in case anyone else is wondering... the material for point particles needs to be set up a bit specially, using a VRay2SidedMtl material with a VRayMtl with roughness equal to 1.0 inside.

We will probably provide a specialized point particle shader for future builds to make this easier to set up.

Best regards,
Vlado