Environment fog and displacement for foam

[jensl]

Hi,

I'm trying to use a displaced mesh to define the volume of environment fog. The fog works and renders fine with a poly mesh defining the volume, but is ignoring the displacement. We're going for something like this.

I tried a version using VrayFastSSS2 but that wasn't looking as close as using environment fog. I had some issues using V-Ray texture baking (much slower than doing it by hand on a poly plane). I also wish there was a way to bake displacement to poly using V-Ray as I'm using some textures from V-Ray plug-in. Any thoughts? Thanks,

Jens

[MoonDoggie]

I would try and create it with just a box as the gizmo for the fog, and adjust your procedural map till you get the holes and stuff the size you'd like.

I don't know about maya, but in max you can "bake displacement to poly" by subdividing the mesh a bunch (meshsmooth modifier), and adding a "Displace" modifier with the map in it. I'm sure it's the same in maya.

[super gnu]

why not use the max displace modifier? if you subdivide your mesh finely enough you can get the same results as vray displacement. converting vray displacement to a mesh would be a bit of a killer, as firstly its often view dependent (depending on settings) and secondly the whole thing with it is creating hugely heavy meshes that would -kill- max if you had in the viewport.

[super gnu]

ahh i didnt see you were using maya.. no idea but i might know someone who does.. ill email him.

[super gnu]

actually, ive just seen your example image.. cant you use a 3d procedural texture to cut the "bubbles" from the foam? that way you could just use a box as your fog volume.

[vlado]

You can attach the VRayEnvironmentFog as a volume shader to your material shading group; then it will work fine for displaced objects.

Best regards,
Vlado

[MoonDoggie]

Just made some in max, far from perfect, but a good start.

[jensl]

Thanks MoonDoggie and gnu, this sort of stuff sounds much easier in Max. We do have access to 'NoiseMaxTex' in Maya (using create tex from v-ray plug-in), and it's quite powerful. SplatTex also works great for this sort of stuff, along with cellularTex for bumpier/styro foam.

Vlado your tip helped, I had placed my EnvFog as the environment volume, and thus it wasn't affected by displacements set in the shading groups. Is it feasible to add a V-Ray displacement baking option? Maya has a built in one, but if you already have the displacement working as you want in V-Ray, it'd be nice to be able to bake it out that same way.

[thescopeteam]

You can attach the VRayEnvironmentFog as a volume shader to your material shading group; then it will work fine for displaced objects.

Best regards,
Vlado

Hi, Vlado. you were saying its possible. Im trying do displace the shape node of an VRayEnvironmentFog with Vray 3.6. The fog is working but not the displacement. I tried both methods , displ connected to the SG of the fog material and a vray displacement node. The displacement is not working ?

[SonyBoy]

You should be able to get results like that using the fog attribute on a regular Vray material.