Volumetric Fog/Light Shafts in Octane 3 for 3DS Max

Sat Jun 11, 2016 8:23 pm

IMAGES: http://imgur.com/a/e8rAD

Hey guys was hoping someone could help me out. I found this video online that was rendered using OctaneRender and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to achieve these types of light shafts. I've watched basically every tutorial on volumetric lighting and the scatter node and read hundreds of forum posts but every time I try, I just can't get the shafts to show up like these do. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have Octane v3.0 Standalone and the 3DS Max plugin v3.

Sat Jun 11, 2016 11:57 pm

This should help

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=54404&start=10

Sun Jun 12, 2016 6:44 am

Hey! Thanks for the reply! I did actually look at that thread already and while it was helpful, still can't seem to get the right look (eg. sharp edges and not as soft light shafts).

Sun Jun 12, 2016 8:11 am

never heard of "hard edge" Godrays. The always get softer the longer they are.. Those screenshots are from a realtime Game engine as far as i can tell and they "Fake" Godrays thats why they are hard edget.. correct me if im wrong. This is as "Hard" as i can get them.

Sun Jun 12, 2016 6:48 pm

Those screenshots are ones that I took of the video I linked and the animations were made with octane viewtopic.php?f=5&t=49086 another example of her work. I actually ended up getting those rays to finally show up! Still a little hard to figure out what setting does what but I figured it out (got some cool light rays coming in through a barred window). And yes I realize that hard edge isn't exactly what I had meant to say sorry about that it was more that I wanted to see the effect more prominently.

Sun Jun 12, 2016 7:11 pm

couldnt play the video so i kudged by the screenshots.. but cool that its working now.. how did you achive them? incase i one might need it to?

Sun Jun 12, 2016 9:08 pm

Used the Octane Daylight system and attached a scattering node to the medium section with a radius of 100 and in the scattering node I made Absorption black and Scattering white with a Schlick Phase set to 0.0 and a density of around 0.02 - 0.03. Then just tweaked the color of Apsorption and Scattering till I got it to look correct.

Mon Jun 13, 2016 11:21 pm

Hi,

Excellent to see that you determined the solution to your issue. Currently, one of the things I am looking into is setting up a Gallery section for this Forum. It would be great for the community to feature work like yours - among other things, it would be an ideal platform to share tip and tricks like this (specific things that go beyond the scope of manuals and technical support). I will let this forum know when that is ready to go.

Cheers,
Azen

Mon Jul 11, 2016 7:18 pm

Can someone explain what is Schlick. What is Schlick phase for. I changed Schlick values but see no difference. Thanks.

Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:35 pm

coilbook wrote:Can someone explain what is Schlick. What is Schlick phase for. I changed Schlick values but see no difference. Thanks.

We use the Schlick function to calculate the direction of a scattered ray in a medium. The "Schlick parameter" is the G-value of the Schlick function, and determines whether light is more likely to scatter forward or backward. If you set it to 1.0, it will look as if the medium disappears, but if you look through the medium towards the light source, you'll see that the light will appear, because it is scattered towards the camera. Look away from the light source and you'll see next to no scattered light from the light source. If you set it to -1, then it will be back-scattering, meaning that you will see the light from the light source only if you look through the medium, but away from the light source.