VRay native PHXFoam equivalent

[hypotheticalinc]

I'm wondering if there is a built-in shader / material to render particles in the same way PHXFoam does (from PhoenixFD). Our farm runs Linux on the render nodes so I use VRay standalone and Alembic files exported from the simulation.

The VRay particle shader comes close but it still looks much more grainy (like sand grains, not image noise grain) than the PHXFoam shader. I'm trying to get the ink look like the Phoenix ink demo gives.

Would the addition of transparency to the particle shader mentioned here achieve that?

[Paul Oblomov]

U have to convert to prt. There's no other way of using phx shaders. Use phx prt loader then and that's it.

If you curious how that might work - you can use #include tag OR use vrscene loader.

P.S. include might not work as expected (you have to guess transforms from ur phx loader and a bunch of other things), better off with vrscene loader, tho u still have to double check axis (dunno where ur cache came from).

[hypotheticalinc]

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. I'm trying to avoid using phoenix shaders completely. I assume there isn't a phoenix shader for standalone Linux, right?

Here's my workflow:
1. Sim particles using Phoenix on Windows / 3ds max
2. Export particles to alembic file
3. Load the alembic file into max using vray proxy object
4. Apply the vraypointparticle material to the proxy - this is what gives me the grainy results I don't quite like.
5. Export the animation as a vrscene to render on the Linux/ standalone farm.

I'd like to be able to apply some other material closer to the result phoenix's phxfoam shader gives. I only recently found the new volume object loader (not sure the exact name right now) that is basically a direct copy from Phoenix but built into vray. I'm hoping there is something similar I've missed.

[Paul Oblomov]

Heh. That concept is quite well hidden (coz it is freaking experimental in max). I'm using vrscenes since a long time. Don't export anything. Use your .aur caches and phx for linux.

Did ya know, you can export just phx stuff to a vrscene and then link it manually to your renderscene (where your objects and all the things, like lights, cameras . . . ) ? Like an asset. In several ways. Just try with a spheres and simple phx stuff.

P.S. Since you're using linux to render - have you ever used vray for maya ? Just to be sure, we're talking about the same. I'm thinking, when it will go public the first one to write a tutorial will earn lots of money ALso, when you export phx to vrscene - change its input tab blabla.aur to blabla.1aur, so the cache won't be read during export (still some issues...), and then just open you vrscene in notepad and change .1aur to .aur. Just a lil speed hint

[hypotheticalinc]

Ohhh, very cool! I didn't know that was possible. I'll have to give it a try on Wednesday when I'm back in and I'll report back on how it goes. Thanks for the tip about export times - reading in 100GB just to export is a bummer.

I haven't tried Vray for Maya yet - I'm a longtime Max user because a lot of my earlier work was architectural. I keep meaning to pick up Maya but it's hard to find the time

[hypotheticalinc]

I made some progress, but getting errors when it goes to render. I exported the scene with the Phoenix objects (FireSmokeSim, PHXFoam, etc) and see that the Phoenix objects are in the .vrscene file. Awesome!

But when it goes to render it gives me black frames and these errors in the log:

Failed to create object of type "PhoenixFDSim"
Failed to create object of type "PhoenixFDCache"
Failed to create object of type "PhoenixFDPGroup"
Failed to create object of type "PhoenixFDPGroup"
Failed to create object of type "PhoenixFDFoam"
Failed to create object of type "PhoenixFDSimVol"

This makes sense - I never installed anything for standalone v-ray and phoenix together. I don't see anything available for that on the Chaos downloads section. Do I need to install something else to bridge them?

[Paul Oblomov]

Phx for linux

[georgi.zhekov]

Hello,

In the Environment settings there is an option called Export as VRayVolumeGrid. Try to turn that on and export the vrscene then. That should do the job.

[hypotheticalinc]

Hmmm, it looks like I don't actually have to install anything special for Phoenix scenes to render on Linux Standalone. I'm able to get water rendering using the PHXLiquid object, but it's not picking up the PHXFoam that I also have in a scene. It also doesn't work on Windows including VrayRT from 3ds Max, so it doesn't look like it's a Linux problem.

Is PHXFoam supported in Standalone?

[georgi.zhekov]

Unfortunately PHXFoam is not supported in Standalone and RT for 3dsmax.

[hypotheticalinc]

Is there any plan to add it? Can I log it as a feature request?