What's the secret to continuing a simulation after a crash.
I tried adjusting the start frame to the last frame simulated but when it starts it's not starting from where the flames were in the previous frame it just starts emitting from nothing. What am I doing wrong?

I'd like to get a little clarity on how I'm supposed to set up my small network in order to work with FumeFX.
I have a laptop/license server which I usually work from for its convenience.
I have a main workstation, it's the most powerful. I like to use this sometimes as well.
I have a slave machine, purely to receive render jobs.

My preferred render engines are VRay 3 and Final Render.

As it stands now, when testing with VRay, only the server/laptop is rendering out the buckets, the workstation and slaves are sending back black/blank boxes. They work fine on non-FumeFX scenes.

I have full installs in both slave machines right now, and the pure slave machines doesn't have a Max license (render-only). In order for me to render, what should I do?

Uninstall the full licenses and install the SL licenses? Or.... ?????

Just a quick note with errors on rendering with mental ray. I resolved the issue but it is worth noting that old problems are still occurring in some situations.

I had a simulation of a suns corona which I had rendered successfully but when upgraded to 3.5.3 would cut black boxes out of the render the closer the camera came to the object. The sim data is generated in one file and is accessed in another scene which contains a copy of the grid with reference to the generated data, repositioned by a couple of hundred units (nothing drastic) to match the geometry and camera.

I checked again that shad segments were activated and the autovolume was on - all ok.

The preview window displayed the data that was simmed so that looked all fine, and rendering scanline looked fine as well. But the render kept going black when rendered with mentalray.

I suspected that the original sim may need to be updated so I changed some sim settings and simmed again, with the same result. this time not using the retimed post process files (which I thought may have been the issue) and just using the straight default sim, but again it rendered black after a number of frames.

Thinking there was an error with the upgrade I decided to check a couple of other sims in the same scene (a separate layer of the chromosphere) strangely this looked fine no matter how close I came.

I decided to come back to the source corona sim and rotate the fume grid so that the z axis faced the front viewport instead of the top and simmed a couple of hundred frames to test. Going back to my main file which accesses the sim data I checked these new frames and they rendered fine!

I am in the process of simming the complete sequence, and have my fingers crossed.

The main reason for this post is to let you know there are still some issues.

Anticipating the usual line...."just use scanline" - this is impossible because I need to generate a dome image to a non standard 120 degree field of view which a 5 camera rig cannot achieve (needs a 180 degree FOV). In addition, it is a great time wasting burden to generate the layers and stitch etc.

-There isn't alot documented on this source
-My 'source' fume grid has Temp and Velocity options checked for export. So does the destination.
-The output paths are unique.
-start frame is the same for both grids
-resolution is the same for both grids
-W, L, H is the same from both grids
-There are some 'calculations' but I never visibly see a result.
-with only the 'fumeFX source the adaptive grid never 'adjusts to fit 'anything' (stays in corner).
-simple sources do work with the same grid.


From here it doesn't seem to work yet with parameters set to Read or Set 100 ?!

Hi. I am interested in finding out the correct technique used to gamma correct the FumeFX color swatches so everything looks right when rendering to EXR files.

Russell Hazelden
Dover Studios, Inc.

Fumefx sims fine on my machine, not network rendering.
Scanline renders fine.
When I use Mental Ray I get nothing at all, if I switch to scanline, it renders fine.
I can compose rendered fumefx output in after effects but would like to be able to get it to render in my scenes using Mental Ray since that's mostly what I render in.

Is there a switch I need to flip or a box I need to check somewhere to make Mental Ray work with Fumefx?
I am using FumeFx Version 3.5.3 on Max Design 2014

Hi,

We are currently having an issue with our Fumefx install in both Maya 2012/ Maya 2014.

// Error: setAttr: No object matches name: fumeFX1SG.miExportShadingEngine //

Each time I create a Fume container this is the resulting error. Nothing will sim or show up

in the GPU render preview. Any ideas?

Hi guys,

could anyone confirm that zdepth is working, or am doing something wrong?

thx

Hi,

I'm emitting only smoke from a particle source (standard maya volume emitter) for a couple of frames. I want to stop emitting in frame 10 but keying the smoke amount value down to zero maya crashes with a fatal error. I tried this twice in maya 2013 and also one time in 2014. It is always crashing after keying the value to zero.

Okay further more ... creating a grid and a particle source keying any value -> crash !

radius -> keyable
valocity mult -> crash
smoke amount -> crash
smoke variance -> keyable

Thanks for your help.

Greets

Rico

I used to use multiple fume boxes with max and windows (scanline and v-ray) all the time with no issue.
The issue seems to be Maya (and Linux) and mental ray.
I get random-certain frames-but not all 'tile-like' squares or 'squares with noise'
when the render camera has to render two (or more) fume boxes at once. They do not have to physically overlap-or visually either; on the frames it happens i can orbit around with the perspective camera and see a variation of the bug from all angles. But if i hide the multiples till one box remains-it renders as expected.

-the sim is fine-I can get correct sequence renders one-box-at-a-time.
-not shadow or light map related
-happens w/without Maya Volume Sampling
-alpha is effected as well.
-the artifact occurs with visible fume boxes whose simulation begins many frames later as well. If the box/grid is visible 'at all' it seems to be enough for the bug.

This feels like the classic (I saw this with Softimage in the '90s and multiple volume lights) mental ray multiple volume render bug. Pretty well known/documented issue for mr I believe. Its just that this one renders 'most frames in a sequence' fine. But the ones that don't render correctly-never will. Its like it 'almost works'-but isn't quite there.

Is this known?

Like i said i do this often and it will get tedious (rendering as many passes) to render with say arrays of fume boxes; for example a row of guns all firing together as a volley.