Hey guys,

Recently i've been asked to produce some detailed pigment / powder paint explosions in CG. I've done a few tests and i'm getting some farily decent results, but yet nothing that looks really realistic. I'm wondering if any of you had some inputs to share if you have any experience tackling the topic.

I created a Pflow system that mimics quite well a grainy sandy explosion with some detailed dynamic breaking for the core of the explosion. I added quite a lot of fine dust debris. I use that Pflow system to generate FumeFX smoke in quite a high density grid using the Particle Source emitter (several actually, 1 for each different color of pigment paint required for the end look). In combination with that I'm also using a couple of simpler Pflow source emitters to fill in the core of the eplosion. To get more realism in terms of dynamics i also use the first Pflow detailed system as collision object (mesher object). Took me some time to get the right dynamics, but it's looking pretty decent already. I get variations in the shape, some nice long pigment (smoke) tendrils pulled out of the Pflow chunks / frags through the puffy core explosion.

My problem now is to render this right. Although the fluid mapping allows to add quite some interesting details in the shape, i'm nowhere near being able to get near the sim enough to get proper close ups. I'm abit reluctant to take this deeper into a Stoke / Krakatoa workflow due to the size of the sim. Partitioning it in Krakatoa for this one sounds like a shitstorm of heavy PRT saving and an even more unfriendly workflow rendering it with Krakatoa. I have very acceptable render times using FinalRender (very bad render times with Vray, go figure...).

If you have any experience with this type of effect / look and feel like sharing, it'd be much appreciated!

I'll post some samples later if anyone's interested.

Thank you.

A.

I'm used to using Mental Ray with FumeFX - so it could be user error.

- I can see polygons in scene rendered. So it works in general.
- I see shaders install /mtoadeplay/2017/shaders/FumeFXShader.dll [6,789KB]

Basic Simple source. GPU preview looks fine. Black on render except placed polygons. Lights are link to FumeFX box.

I'm obviously missing something.

Thanks,
jason

If I'm rendering smoke only, is it pointless to sim fuel set to "fire creates smoke" or does simming fuel shape the smoke sim differently?

I'm simming a fast moving object that has a quickly dissipating smoke trail. The adaptive grid begins to extend way past my voidsrc after a few seconds, and what's even more strange is it extends just as much ahead of the movement (where there is absolutely no voxel data).

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

Attached is a screenshot at the most extreme segment of the simulation. Orange is the animated voidsrc and blue is the adaptive grid. My source is a simple src parented to a node which is on a path constraint. As you can see I'm trying to optimize the sim to only calculate within the camera's cone.

Max steps is set to 4 and the current CFL around that frame is 63.

Hey everyone,
I'm looking for a way to illuminate my smoke with my fire using the Black Body shader for Arnold in Maya 2017 similar to how it's lit in the example video from Sitni Sati's vimeo page. Is there is some way to have Arnold treat the fire as a light so that it could illuminate the smoke as well as its surroundings? If not, is there is a way to get the Multiple Scattering illumination settings from the FumeFX tab to work in an Arnold render? Thanks for any help!

Hi

I have an issue with FumeFX 4.0.3 and mental ray with Maya 2016.
I have enabled auto volume jet when I try to render it renders a blank frame is there any other setting that must be enabled in order to use mental ray?
I can find no new source of how to use the latest mental ray with fumeFX as the interface of the render Globals are different from Maya 2015 compared with Maya 2016

Kind Regards
Deon Oosthuizen

I uninstalled Afterburn from my system and installed 4.2.2 for Max 2016/2017. The 2017 installer worked fine, but the 2016 installer had an error that is in the screen shot attached.
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

After doing this, none of my Afterworks software will launch (Fume, Afterburn, Enlight, etc) and brings up the AfterFlics license dialog to activate. But when I choose my license server (that has been running all Afterworks software fine with the latest versions), it says there is an error:
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

Hello,
I purchased fume fx quite recently. I attach youtube video that shows my problem:
https://youtu.be/5tmotE6nyBw

No matter the shader is gradient/blackbody, no matter multiple scattering is on or off, no matter if shadows are there or not, it always flicker. Before and after retiming by 0.5.
It is harder and harder to make an explosion without flickering. I use genuine fume 4.0.5 and I have latest gpu drivers (nvidia). Cheap fix by restarting scene and render straight away doesn't work.
I attach screen with all fume settings:

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

What is wrong with my settings? Or plugin itself? I can provide the scene if needed.
I hope its my mistake.

Just a quick suggestion

There would be much less stress when "out of disk space. free some disk space and retry to continue" would be managed differently: Ability to setup "fume overflow" paths on different drives as emergency ones. It could be set in preferences as "overflow disks". And fume could not only to switch disks in mid of simulation and continue but also would be capable of seamlessly read frames from first disk an the overflow one. This method is successfuly employed in realflow and it saves lot of deadlines and stress from out of disk space messages seen in the morning

Hi
I am having a wierd problem since the last week. :'( :'(
I am using Maya 2016 and Fume 4.0.2 on centos 7
I am simulating smoke using a Fume simple source. I noticed that when I using F3D format or FXD format.
The simulation runs fine, cache is saved and I can pause and run the simulation in between.
But when i change the format to vdb, the simulation runs, but the moment i pause or stop the simulation, Maya crashes
and when I try to reopen the scene, Maya crashes again and again until i delete the vdb cache.
Am I doing anything wrong here or is it the problem with the new update.

Here is the link to the scene : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6C_dX ... sp=sharing

Could any one please please help me with this.
I could use f3d format for now but finding a solution for this would be really helpful.

Thanks
Kishore