Open Vdb fire simulation not working in 3dsmax vray

[marcello_paniccia]

I tried to export a basic 250 frames fire simulation from Blender as an open vdb sequence.

Apparently Vray Next for 3dsMax only loads the smoke channel from the first frame, no matter how I change the parameters in the input rollout.
Am I doing something wrong or it depends on Blender vdb not being compatible with Vray Next volume grid?

Anyone managed to make this work? Is it possible at all?
If I search on google/youtube there are several tutorials and demos involving Houdini, Fume FX, Ember gen and of course Phoenix, but not a single one about Blender to Max/Vray workflow.

[hermit.crab]

Could you send the scene and .vdb cache via the contact form so we can take a look? Mention me in the subject and include a link to this thread in the message.

[marcello_paniccia]

Thank you in advance.
I have submitted both the max scene and the original blender simulation, including all the VDB output folders and the link to this tread.
Let me know if I submitted correctly, because I didn't receive any confirmation message from the contact webage.

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

We got the files, thanks! Could it be that you have used an older Blender version (before 2.9).
Can you try updating to Blender 2.9 or newer and try again - there they have introduced a few changes to the vdb export and using that the files should be read correctly in V-Ray.

Note that you will need to tweak the render settings ( the Blender ranges are a bit different than the defaults the V-Ray Volume Grid ones), you can try the Houdini Fire/Smoke preset as a starting point (note that this will rotate your cache on import but, you can flip it using the Flip Axis checkbox in the Input rollout of the Volume Grid).

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

[marcello_paniccia]

Thank you so much, upgrading Blender did the trick.
Regarding the starting preset I tried with the Houdini preset, but I feel the Maya preset works a bit better for me as a starting point.
No need to flip this one, I just had to scale it up a bit and reduced the intensity of the flame..
I'll try to play with this another bit just to tweak the shader better, but this is clearly working quite well out of the box.
Thank you again.

[georgi.zhekov]

Awesome, glad that it all works now.

Cheers!