[Feature Request] OpenVDB Support For Volumetric Rendering

[MOSFET]

Hey Guys,

I was looking at Karba's trials with rendering clouds using Octane's fog feature and was wondering if there is an easier way to get realistic results.

A new open source volumetric file format called OpenVDB (http://www.openvdb.org) just reached its v1.0 milestone and was a marquee feature in Houdini 12.5 in the form of Cloud FX

OpenVBD whitepaper:

http://www.museth.org/Ken/Publications.html

OpenVBD documentation page:

http://www.openvdb.org/documentation/

Example of an open source CUDA based ray tracer of voxel data:

http://code.google.com/p/efficient-spar ... l-octrees/

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If technically feasible, it would really be to Octane's long term benefit to integrate these open data formats (Alembic, OpenVDB, OpenEXR 2.0, OpenSubdiv and PTEX). Build support and the users will find new ways to utilize Octane in their pipelines.

[jmfowler]

That would be great! +1

[machineyes]

OpenVDB in Houdini is pretty amazing and would be an awesome addition to Octane! Count me in! how do we get this to happen?!

[MOSFET]

Digging a bit further, supporting OpenVDB on the GPU *in general* is tricky but not impossible. The question is how well does OpenVDB line up with an unbiased renderer such as Octane. Case in point Dreamworks developed Amorphous GPU renderer which side steps the VRAM issues normally associated with dense volumes but it is biased.

http://elrond.informatik.tu-freiberg.de ... tthews.pdf

***As and alternative the quickest solution towards merging Octane renders with believable volumetric effects would be to support the OpenEXR 2.0 (Octane request thread) format with its Deep Data channels. It would allow you to take Mantra, 3Delight, PMan and Arnold renders from Houdini and accurately relight and composite them with Octane renders in Nuke. Not a perfect replacement for native OpenVDB support but the benefits of adding OpenEXR 2.0 would be both immediate and immense to those with the right pipeline.***

[machineyes]

Mosfet, are you a Houdini user yourself? I'm reaching out to a friend from DD about helping us build a plugin. I saw a user on Vimeo that seemed to have built something but don't see it available anywhere.

Great call on OpenEXR. An octane render for Houdini would at the very least, allow Houdini users to render their scenes in Octane w/ camera movements and all and then compliment them w/ Openvdb renders inside Mantra. I've even had great results with Houdini's openGL ROP for fast graphics volumetric rendering.