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However, for ease of use, the Fire/Smoke simulator Simulator object also contains a Rendering rollout, which provides flexible options for rendering the simulator grid's content, as well as shading controls for volumetrics.
The Rendering rollout offers multiple render modes, that can be divided into two types: Volumetric and Volumetric and Surfaces.
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The volumetric modes are typically used for rendering fire and smoke, meanwhile, liquid simulations are typically rendered using one of the surface render modes. |
Since volumetric modes do not have surfaces, 3ds Max and V-Ray materials cannot be used for shading. Instead, their shading is described in the Volumetric Render Settings window, which you can open with the Volumetric Options... button.
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The Volumetric Render Settings enable you to shade the Color and Opacity of the Fire fire and Smokesmoke, using simple color gradients and graph diagrams that you can tweak with curves, to achieve a wide variety of different results, that you can tweak with curves. |
Meanwhile, the surface render modes generate a mesh surface, which is based on the channel specified in the Surface parameter dropdown.
Unlike volumetric modes, surface render modes cause the simulator Simulator to behave just as any regular geometry. Thus, a Smoke simulation can be rendered as a polygon mesh with a 3ds Max or V-Ray material applied to it, and there is no need for a dedicated shader. This can be used to create more advanced effects, such as a freezing flame, cartoon-style smoke, or rendering fire as a liquid.
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Note that the Fire/Smoke Simulator’s Rendering rollout controls do not apply to any particles contained in the cache file. If you want to render the particle content of the Simulator (e.g. Foam, Splashes, or Drag particles), create a Particle Shader object and add the Simulator to it, so the Particle Shader can read the cache data loaded by the Simulator. The Particle Shader can then shade the particles as either Points, Bubbles, Cellular, Splashes, or Fog, depending on the mode you select. |
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UI Path: ||Select Fire Smoke Simulator | FireSmokeSim object|| > Modify panel > Rendering rollout |
Actions
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Volumetric shading settings are not stored within the caches themselves, so if you want to use the same render settings for another simulator or project, there is the option to save and load them as Phoenix Render Presets in the “.tpr” file format. |
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Parameters
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When the Pin icon is enabled, the Volumetric Render Settings window will remain open even after deselecting the Simulator, Voxel Shader, or V-Ray Volume Grid. The option's default state is set to "Pinned", but if you need to change its behavior, you can do so from the Phoenix FD Global Preferences menu. |
Parameters
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Invert Cutter | invgizmo – When enabled, rendering will occur only outside of the render cutter. This is not the same as a cutter with inverted geometry because any rays that do not intersect the cutter will be shaded as well.
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Example: Heat Haze
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Surface Channel
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This section controls the conversion of the grid content into geometry. If Mode is set to Mesh, Ocean Mesh, Cap Mesh or Isosurface, the Surface channel needs to be set and an appropriate Isosurface Level must be chosen from this section. The controls in this section also denote the surface used in Gradient and Surface-driven displacement. This way it can affect all render modes, not just the surface modes. The technique for generating the surface is based on the isosurface concept. The resulting surfaces are mostly used to render liquids, but can be used for smoke and fire as well to create effects like underwater bubbles, freezing fire, etc. |
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The proper value for the Isosurface Level parameter depends on the numerical range of the surface channel. For example, Phoenix liquids are kept in the range of 0 to 1. A value of 0 means there is no liquid in a certain voxel, and a value of 1 means the cell is 100% full of liquid. Values in between indicate a certain mixture of air and liquid. For such cache files, an Isosurface Level value of 0.5 is best for visualizing the surface between the air and liquid. Imported caches from Houdini, on the other hand, use positive and negative values to indicate whether a voxel is inside or outside the liquid volume, so a correct "halfway" Isosurface Level value would be 0.0. For Phoenix smoke, the proper value is about 0.01, and for Phoenix temperature, which is in Kelvins, the value is several hundred. Please check the Grid Channel Ranges page for information about other grid channels.
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Example: Volumetric Motion Blur for Fire
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Example: Volumetric Motion Blur for Explosions
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Displacement
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Displacement is a technique intended to add detail to the simulation during the rendering. The idea of the Phoenix displacement is similar to the usual geometry displacement: a texture is sampled, and the corresponding point of the fluid volume or surface is shifted in a direction at a distance determined by the texture. You can plug any V-Ray, 3ds Max or Phoenix texture maps. |
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Example: Advection Displacement
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Example: Advection Displacement with a Monochrome Map
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This example illustrates how displacement is affected when a monochrome map is passed when a vector map is needed. |
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