How do i render fumefx particle colors already assigned with Krakatoa?

andrewnordgren · February 19, 2016, 4:04pm

Bobo · February 19, 2016, 8:43pm

Can you please elaborate a bit more? I am not sure I understand the question.
Are you rendering a PRT FumeFX in Krakatoa?
Or are you passing Krakatoa particles to FumeFX and rendering in another renderer using the FumeFX atmospheric?

A list of steps describing your setup and how the data flows between the objects would help a lot!
Also knowing the versions of the various plugins (FumeFX, Krakatoa, any other renderer involved) would be useful.

andrewnordgren · February 21, 2016, 1:58am

i am using 3ds max 2016, fumefx 3.5.5 , and krakatoa 2.4

i am using fumefx applied to a few different meshes in a circle with the extra turbulence assigned to a audio controller because i want it to be a audio visualizer, each mesh smoke is a different color, when i use fumefx output preview it shows up fine but when i render with krakatoa it only appears as one of the colors ive assigned. im not using a PRT loader, is that how i should be doing it?

heres a picture of whats going on: imgur.com/i8cGWbO

this is similar to what im trying to achieve- youtu.be/fpViZkhpPHk?t=1m52s

Bobo · February 21, 2016, 6:37am

It is not visible in your screenshot, but is the Color channel exported by the FumeFX simulation (it is added to the list when the Simulate Color option is checked in the Sim tab. The PRT FumeFX object should have a Color channel taken from the FumeFX simulation when the Color channel is exported, otherwise it would render in its object wireframe color. Unfortunately, the PRT FumeFX object is also not visible in the screenshot.
Can you make a screenshot that shows

The “gen” tab of FumeFX so I can see the “Exporting Channels” list
The PRT FumeFX object visible in the Modify tab of the 3ds Max Command Panel
The Krakatoa Particle Data Viewer open with the PRT FumeFX selected so I can see the channels and their content.

Thanks!

andrewnordgren · February 22, 2016, 1:44am

imgur.com/lxmKt9w

i think thats everything you asked for if i missed anything let me know. thanks for helping!

Bobo · February 22, 2016, 2:45am

Yeah, that helps.
It is obvious from the screenshot that you correctly exported the Color channel, and it (incorrectly?) passed black [0,0,0] for every sample, so the color is just not there. In other words, the PRT FumeFX object IS getting a color, but it is pure black everywhere.

I will have to consult with the developers (or even some advanced FumeFX users) to see when this might be the case - I suspect that there is something else we are missing on the FumeFX side.
Also, we are switching Krakatoa to a different FumeFX data access interface right now (we already did that for Stoke MX to avoid breaking like we experienced between 4.0.0 and 4.0.1/4.0.2), so it will be interesting to see if that will change anything in the next build when it comes to color.

Stay tuned!

andrewnordgren · February 22, 2016, 4:00am

ok thank you let me know if you find a solution

Bobo · February 22, 2016, 6:32pm

So, I installed FumeFX 3.5.5 in 3ds Max 2016 (and also 2013, just in case) and tested Krakatoa MX 2.4.3 with it.
In the scene, I had a few geometry emitters, all set to Add a different color value to the FumeFX Color channel.
In the FumeFX settings, the Sim tab had Simulate Color checked.
Both the viewport and the renderer showed correctly the simulated color.

I also tested the new build of Krakatoa that uses the alternative FumeFX data access interface.
I tested it with FumeFX 4.0.1 (which would not work with the release build in Krakatoa due to a change in the old FumeFX interface), and it also worked correctly in the same scene.

So at this point, I am unsure why the color produced by your simulation comes over as black, especially if it renders as color with FumeFX itself.

Any chance we could see your scene (you can email me at bobo AT thinkboxsoftware DOT com)?
We have to determine whether it is your software installation that is different than mine, or whether there is something about the actual scene settings that is causing the different behavior…

andrewnordgren · February 23, 2016, 3:45am

Bobo:

So, I installed FumeFX 3.5.5 in 3ds Max 2016 (and also 2013, just in case) and tested Krakatoa MX 2.4.3 with it.
In the scene, I had a few geometry emitters, all set to Add a different color value to the FumeFX Color channel.
In the FumeFX settings, the Sim tab had Simulate Color checked.
Both the viewport and the renderer showed correctly the simulated color.

I also tested the new build of Krakatoa that uses the alternative FumeFX data access interface.
I tested it with FumeFX 4.0.1 (which would not work with the release build in Krakatoa due to a change in the old FumeFX interface), and it also worked correctly in the same scene.

So at this point, I am unsure why the color produced by your simulation comes over as black, especially if it renders as color with FumeFX itself.

Any chance we could see your scene (you can email me at bobo AT thinkboxsoftware DOT com)?
We have to determine whether it is your software installation that is different than mine, or whether there is something about the actual scene settings that is causing the different behavior…

ok, i sent it

Bobo · February 23, 2016, 4:31am

Ok, I fixed it

Open the scene
Select the PRT FumeFX object in the Scene Explorer
Open the Particle Data Viewer from the Krakatoa menu and look at the data - the Color channel is black.
In the File menu of the Particle Data Viewer, uncheck the option “Evaluate PRT Object’s MATERIAL” and update
Notice that the Color channel now contains the correct gradient colors!
So now that we know you have a (mental ray!) shader assigned to the PRT FumeFX, open the MAXScript Listener and with the same object still selected, type in

$.material = undefined

At this point, your PRT FumeFX has no material, and will show beautiful colors in the viewport!

NOTE: This turned out to be a bug in the PRT FumeFX creation MacroScript, which means it is totally my fault. The script copies the material assigned to the FumeFX Grid to the PRT FumeFX, which is a bad idea in this case (Krakatoa tries to evaluate any material to get a color, but only really supports a few 3ds Max materials like the Standard material). I will fix this for the next update. Sorry for the annoyance!

However, rendering the scene would also render the Particle Flow in blue color, overwriting the PRT FumeFX’s colors (those were the blue-gray particles you saw initially).
So you can either hide the PFlow using Scene Explorer, or uncheck the [>PF Geo] option in the Krakatoa sources list to not render the PFlow.

To make it look more beautiful, switch to Voxel mode, and uncheck the Jitter option in the PRT FumeFX.

Let me know if this helps.

andrewnordgren · February 23, 2016, 5:32am

Bobo:

Ok, I fixed it

Open the scene

Select the PRT FumeFX object in the Scene Explorer

Open the Particle Data Viewer from the Krakatoa menu and look at the data - the Color channel is black.

In the File menu of the Particle Data Viewer, uncheck the option “Evaluate PRT Object’s MATERIAL” and update

Notice that the Color channel now contains the correct gradient colors!

So now that we know you have a (mental ray!) shader assigned to the PRT FumeFX, open the MAXScript Listener and with the same object still selected, type in

$.material = undefined

At this point, your PRT FumeFX has no material, and will show beautiful colors in the viewport!

NOTE: This turned out to be a bug in the PRT FumeFX creation MacroScript, which means it is totally my fault. The script copies the material assigned to the FumeFX Grid to the PRT FumeFX, which is a bad idea in this case (Krakatoa tries to evaluate any material to get a color, but only really supports a few 3ds Max materials like the Standard material). I will fix this for the next update. Sorry for the annoyance!

However, rendering the scene would also render the Particle Flow in blue color, overwriting the PRT FumeFX’s colors (those were the blue-gray particles you saw initially).

So you can either hide the PFlow using Scene Explorer, or uncheck the [>PF Geo] option in the Krakatoa sources list to not render the PFlow.

To make it look more beautiful, switch to Voxel mode, and uncheck the Jitter option in the PRT FumeFX.

Let me know if this helps.

thank you so much this was very helpful!

andrewnordgren · February 23, 2016, 5:23pm

Bobo:

Ok, I fixed it

Open the scene

Select the PRT FumeFX object in the Scene Explorer

Open the Particle Data Viewer from the Krakatoa menu and look at the data - the Color channel is black.

In the File menu of the Particle Data Viewer, uncheck the option “Evaluate PRT Object’s MATERIAL” and update

Notice that the Color channel now contains the correct gradient colors!

So now that we know you have a (mental ray!) shader assigned to the PRT FumeFX, open the MAXScript Listener and with the same object still selected, type in

$.material = undefined

At this point, your PRT FumeFX has no material, and will show beautiful colors in the viewport!

NOTE: This turned out to be a bug in the PRT FumeFX creation MacroScript, which means it is totally my fault. The script copies the material assigned to the FumeFX Grid to the PRT FumeFX, which is a bad idea in this case (Krakatoa tries to evaluate any material to get a color, but only really supports a few 3ds Max materials like the Standard material). I will fix this for the next update. Sorry for the annoyance!

However, rendering the scene would also render the Particle Flow in blue color, overwriting the PRT FumeFX’s colors (those were the blue-gray particles you saw initially).

So you can either hide the PFlow using Scene Explorer, or uncheck the [>PF Geo] option in the Krakatoa sources list to not render the PFlow.

To make it look more beautiful, switch to Voxel mode, and uncheck the Jitter option in the PRT FumeFX.

Let me know if this helps.

Still renders black with PF Geo off , with it on it renders blue still, and colors are not in view port, what did i do wrong.
imgur.com/iYAs6F4

Bobo · February 23, 2016, 6:51pm

Did you remove the material from the PRT FumeFX as instructed?
Disabling the checkbox in Particle Data Viewer only SHOWS you what the data is without the material, but if the renderer still finds a mental ray shader assigned to the PRT FumeFX, it will keep on rendering black…

andrewnordgren · February 23, 2016, 10:16pm

Got it! thank you i didnt have the script applied properly.

Glacierise · February 24, 2016, 4:12pm

Hi,

Tried that in FFX 4.0.2 and Krakatoa 2.4.3.59385 in Max 2016 SP2, and it looks broken - the density channel of PRTFFX looks broken, and the color channel is empty.

Screenshot, with a magma to map density to viewportColor:
dropbox.com/s/qntfxvbpey766 … 6.png?dl=0

And here’s a scene:
dropbox.com/s/2q3bg84abdhmo … 1.zip?dl=0

Thanks!

Bobo · February 24, 2016, 7:09pm

Yes, we know that. Only 4.0.0 works with that Krakatoa.

4.0.1 and 4.0.2 broke the FumeFX SDK, so Kreso advised us to switch to using the alternative API which does not change with versions.
We already fixed Stoke and released an update, with the added benefit of being able to read FXD files even of FumeFX itself is not installed!

We are working on a Krakatoa update that uses the same interface, and from first tests looks like it is going to work with any version of FumeFX including these latest point releases.

Glacierise · February 24, 2016, 8:42pm

Goody!