material wrapper and fume FX

[dre4mer]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to capture a GI shadow from a vray dome light and fume fx smoke plume on a material wrapper. I see the shadow on a normal vray material but the wrapper doesn't seem to be collecting it. I get nothing. on the wrapper matte turned on, shadows and affect alpha set on, alpha contribution set to -1.

Any ideas? Should this be working or is this an issue working together with fumefx?

I knew i shoulda got pheonix....

-Ethan

[vlado]

You can always export f3d files out of FumeFX and render with the volume grid.

Best regards,
Vlado

[dre4mer]

Well I did have that thought because it seemed like it would play alot nicer outside of fumefx.

I was able to export f3d files from fume. But when I load them into the volume grid I just get a single frame. cache range is automatically blank and unclickable. It's like it doesn't bring over the cache sequence.

http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3/VRayVolumeGrid

Is there any other documentation on using f3d's in maya or from fume?

[dre4mer]

AH HA! located a little tidbit about this... changing the f3d file name to _#### in the volume grid fixes the issue and it sees the cache sequence.

However, now i'm getting a [pheonixSimPlugin] error loading simulation data for frame 13 (or whatever frame it's on when I try to render)

Do I need pheonix FD installed to be able to do this?

Input Cache File - the cache file name in one of the three volumetric formats that VRayVolumeGrid supports (OpenVDB, Field3D, PhoenixFD). The file name can contain format specifier to describe a sequence of files. VRayVolumeGrid supports multiple format specifiers:
<frame0n>, where n is an integer number specifying the number of digits, and the optional 0, specifies padding with zeroes. For example, if you enter cache_<frame04>.vdb as the file name, this will be expanded to cache_0000.vdb for frame 0, cache_0001.vdb for frame 1, and so on. The same logic is used for VRayMesh.
# symbols will be replaced with the current frame number. Multiple symbols can be used to specify the number of digits in the file name. For example cache_###.vdb, will be expanded to cache_001.vdb for frame 1.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

FumeFX by default saves f3d files that are unusable for other applications. There is an option that you must check somewhere in the FumeFX settings to save in a standard f3d format.

[georgi.zhekov]

Make sure you're using gzip compression for f3d in order to load the files smoothly in VRayVolumeGrid.

[dre4mer]

yup I did find that info somewhere about setting it to gzip. I have done that. I'm still getting

[pheonixSimPlugin] error loading simulation data for frame 13 (or whatever frame it's on when I try to render)

This sounds like it requires phoenix to be installed to be able to use the volume grid or something?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

No, no need for Phoenix, it's just the same shader and it's got the internal phoenix naming too. Which V-Ray version are you using?

[dre4mer]

I'm using vray 3. While searching around online I found another person posting to forums trying to do this exact same thing and getting the same error message. No one ever replied to him though. It is just not compatible with fume fx output?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

It's definitely compatible. Could you share one of the cache files you are using?

Also, to be more specific, I assume you are using V-Ray 3.1?

[dre4mer]

Thanks for the reply! For some reason It is working now i'm not entirely sure what changed. But hey it's working. It seems like there isn't enough controls in the vray volume grid to duplicate the look that fume fx has though?

In this video (done in max using the vray volume grid) he has alot more controls and manages to make it look very similar. Are these only controls in max volume grid? Or am I missing something here.

https://vimeo.com/139636408

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

It's true - the 3ds max version reflects a much newer state of the Phoenix shader - maya will have those changes in the next V-Ray release too.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

Actually, VRay 3.1 for Maya has newer PhoenixFD shader then 3ds Max 3.2, it's just missing some controls, or they are named differently.

[dre4mer]

I have vray 3.00.1 for maya would 3.1 have any updates to the pheonix shader?

[ivaylo.ivanov]

Yes, of course.