This page provides information on the Export rollout for a FireSmokeSim object.

Overview


This rollout contains controls for the export of meshes and particles from the Phoenix Simulator via 3rd party plugins or built-in exporters in 3ds Max.

Currently, Chaos Phoenix can export meshes and mesh animation sequences using the following:

  • V-Ray VRmesh exporter.
  • Thinkbox X-Mesh.
  • Exocortex Crate Alembic exporter.
  • 3ds Max Alembic exporter (available in 3ds Max 2015 or newer).

In most cases you need to enable Show Mesh in the Preview rollout for the mesh export to work correctly.

Phoenix can export particles using the following:

  • Phoenix's own Thinkbox Krakatoa PRT file exporter.
  • Exocortex Crate Alembic exporter.
  • 3ds Max Alembic exporter (available in 3ds Max 2016 SP1 or newer).
  • Simulating to OpenVDB can export particles since Phoenix FD 3.14.

UI Path: ||Select Fire Smoke Simulator object|| > Modify panel > Export rollout


Parameters


Expand – Opens a floating dialog that contains the selected rollout and automatically folds the command panel rollout.

Re-Center – Resets the position of the floating rollout.

? – Opens up the help documents for the Fire/Smoke Export.

Export as | exportas –  Both the built-in 3ds Max Alembic exporter and Exocortex Crate support exporting either only a mesh or only particles from a single object, which is why you need to choose which of those would be exposed by the Phoenix simulator:

Disabled
Particles

Mesh

Due to current limitations of the Alembic exporters, in certain cases rendering of Phoenix particles is not possible if Mesh is selected, and rendering of meshes is not possible if Particles is selected. For this reason, it is recommended that you switch back to Disabled after exporting.

If you want to export an Alembic file and render it with motion blur, please follow these steps.

In Particles mode, if the Simulator contains several particle systems, such as Foam, Splash, etc., a mix of all these systems will be exported by the Simulator. If you want to export the particle systems separately, you can do so by exporting the Particle System nodes of Phoenix and you don't need to change Export as when exporting separate particle systems.


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