AWS Thinkbox Discussion Forums

PRT FFX - VDB Support

Krakatoa for 3ds Max
#1

VDB has become a much better format to sim with in Fume, to render with a VrayVolumeGrid or if we need to pass data between programs. Sadly, the PRT FumeFX object can’t read VDB which means in order to use it to add details into the sim, we need to have the sim in 2 formats, both .fxd and .vdb. It would be awesome to be able to use VDBs directly in the future, not only with PRT FFX but Stoke as well.

#2

I am not following, why cannot you use VDB with Stoke right now?

PRT FumeFX reads data from the FumeFX simulator, not from external files, so there isn’t much we can do there, unless the FumeFX object itself can read VDBs in place of FXD files. However,

  • The Stoke Field Loader can read either FXDs, VDBs or F3Ds from disk without FumeFX even being installed on the computer.
  • The Stoke PRT Field can convert a Stoke Field Loader to Krakatoa particles similar to the way PRT FumeFX can (minus the fire color shader evaluation which is a PRT FumeFX exclusive).
  • The Stoke Field Simulator can use a Stoke Field Loader reading the VDBs as Velocity source.
  • The Stoke Field Magma can access any channels in the Stoke Field Loader to tweak the data coming in VDB, FXD or F3D format.

Can you explain what exactly are you proposing here?

That being said, loading VDBs directly in Krakatoa and rendering them as voxels without conversion to particles would be nice.

#3

Doesn’t the FumeFX object load VDB’s just fine? It’s not limited to .fxd.

That is a nice workaround for simming with Stoke and VDB’s so thank you for that posting that process up. But as far as people with just Krakatoa and not Stoke it would be nice to have that VDB support with the PRT FumeFX directly.

#4

The PRT FumeFX object talks to the FumeFX object and asks for its channels and data via the FumeFXIO API. So if the FumeFX object loads VDB files just fine, then the PRT FumeFX should get the data just fine, too. I just have not tested that :slight_smile: From your initial post I assumed you tested and it did not work. Would you have the time to give it a try? :wink:

#5

I tried loading VDBs into a Fume object again and no particles were generated. I changed the cache format to .fxd and then the PRT FumeFX acted as expected. Not sure what would be different between the two from how you explained the PRT Fume object gets it’s data but something isn’t working with the VDB format.

#6

Thanks for testing, I will log this as an issue.

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