Vray, Real flow, Motion Blur

[Adam H. Stewart]

I have been working with Real flow from Next Limit. I am not sure what I think yet it is an odd programme. Anyway I cannot seem to get Vray to render motion blur. You output from Real flow a sequencial file that is then loaded into 3ds through a mesh or particle loader. This is where you enable motion blur. On the real flow site somebody had a similar motion blur problem using finalrender. The solution was to put an Edit Mesh modifier in the stack. This unfortunately does not work with Vray - anybody got any suggestions ?

Thanks

[Morbid Angel]

where realflow will produce changing topology on the object vray will not be able to calculate blur as it will not know where those vertecies will translate on the next frame. Only solution is to do a post blur. The one that there is in realflow is not designed for vray.

[Adam H. Stewart]

Thank You

Thanks for the speedy reply - it looks like post is the way to go. I have contemplated using Final Render which I have but haven't used in a couple of hundred years and never really had much look with.
Sounds like you have some experience with real flow - I am going to be using it for two projects with both Maya and Max and am getting increasingly nervous about it's functionality, it appears that it is trying to be too much to too many programmes and the tech support naturally becomes a hit and miss affair.

[Morbid Angel]

yeah real flow as any fluid simulation system is limited in its ability, such as texture mapping is very poor, and if you plan to use it for anything other then water ie lava/dirt/anything that has texture dont expect great results. Also it has hard time rendering and well simulating is not easy, you got to backe everything in your scene into animated vertex data then port it into realflow then simulate then back. Its a hussle if you have 20-40 shots to do with characters and etc. I could suggest a glu3d approach as it is intergrated in max works on the same pincipal but has better texture mappings and more user friendly. All tho I found that realflow has a better looking simulation of the fluid.

[joconnell]

Heya Adam,

You can tell realflow to keep the same vertex numbers when generating meshes and get it to include motion blur vectors - From version 2.5 onwards it's been able to do that. On really high quality simulations it seemed to behave slughtly better than glu3d too.

[Adam H. Stewart]

Great

Thanks guys this forum is one of the best I have come across anywhere. I have been on the Maya forum, the realflow forum, the discreet forum, subjects sit there for days without a single reply. Here things move fast and I consistently get answers - thank you very much.
I am working on a couple of projects that need liquids luckily they don't need too much mapping work, some liquids are sludge, some are water, some are chocolate and toffee. I am also working across platforms as one of the projects is in Maya - it is going to be a interesting couple of months.

I'll give the vector thing a shot - thanks again.

[Morbid Angel]

yeah....there is good people here. as to vector, you might want to look into la maison shader for mental ray. It produces 3d moblur info and renders it into rgb, picture looks like normal map sort of, then this info can be applied in combustion or where ever thru a real smart motion blur plugin. La maison works with maya/max....we did experements with it...all tho at the end ended up using rpf blur.
Cheers

[joconnell]

I'ved used the realflow motion vectors to drive full 3d motion blur so you don't need to go with rpf - as for realflow it's probably the worst piece of software I've ever used, with dreadful support, terrible forums (one of my questions on the forum is still unanswered over a year later) and really unhelpful documentation - the makers don't even seem to have a fully solid grasp on how to use it :/

[Adam H. Stewart]

How exactly to do I set up the motion vectors ?

How exactly do I set up the motion vectors I had a look last night and couldn't seem to find the setting. Is it something in the Mesh attributes or is it when I bring it into 3dsmax ?
Glad I'm not the only one being driven crazy by realflow. There are some pretty basic functions that it is lacking - being able to hide or unhide objects, being able to merge objects, being able to set output paths.
There are also things that are mentioned on the forums that do not exist - or appear not to - flowtracer - what the hell is that ?
Onwards and upwards.

[joconnell]

yeah - if you use the latest version of the realflow plugins there's an option on the rfloader for motion blur duration - this'll sort it out.