Available from Octane plugin version 26.8
(for tyFlow PRO version 2.007 or higher)
Octane can render tyFlow volume direcly, without the need to export as VDB.
A new modifier "OctVolumeTyFlow (WSM)" should be used to control the Octane grid settings and medium.
When a OctVolumeTyFlow modifier is added to a tyFlow object, a Standard volume is automatically created, with default settings
Note that when there is no OctVolumeTyFlow modifier, an internal default Standard volume is used.
Note: The LocalDB Directory in Octane Preferences / Material should be set to a valid existing directory.
Basic usage steps:
New scene
Set Octane as renderer
Create a teapot
Create a tyFlow object
Open Editor (tyFlow)
Add a Birth Inferno
Select Interno Emitter
Pick button : select the teapot
Close tyFlow editor
Move the timeline to frame 100 (to let tyFlow do the simulation now)
go to frame 50
Open Octane viewport
Check that the render match approximately the display in the 3dsMax viewport.
Close Octane viewport
Select the tyFlow object
Add a OctVolumeTyFlow modifier.
Open Material Editor
drag the medium from the modifier to the Material editor (Instance)
Open Octane viewport
The render should be the same as without modifier
Adjustments can now be made to improve the result.
----- tyFlow volume channels
tyFlow can generate the folowing volume channels:
temperature (single float value)
density (single float value)
color (3 float values, for r,g,b)
fuel (single float value)
velocity (3 float values, for x,y,z velocities)
2 additional channels are made available to the Octane OctVolumeTyFlow modifier, that are based on the temperature channel:
temperature color ('temperColor')
temperature opacity ('temperOpacity')
Depending on the tyFlow simulation settings (tyFlow node editor), those channels may or may not be enabled, or may contain empty values or same value for all voxels.
The values may be in a range that match what Octane expect ('Normalized') (usually in the [0,1] range), but may also be much larger or smaller.
In most cases, it might be more easy to adjust the Octane medium settings with normalized values.
The OctVolumeTyFlow modifier provide a way to remap each channel to a range better fit for Octane medium.
That is especially usefull for the Temperature Color channel, that can have RGB values much higher that 1.0.
----- Assigning tyFlow channels to Octane channels ------
The Octane Volume object (that is used internally for the tyFlow Inferno object) has several default channels that are used by the Octane medium.
Those are Absorption, Emission, Scatter and Velocity. There are scale values for each of those channels.
Those are used by legacy medium types, like Absorption, Random walk, Scattering, Volume medium.
But the new medium 'Std Volume medium' (recommended for tyFlow Inferno) do not use those channel in a fixed way, and will instead just make the selected channels available for it's various settings
(Density, Scatter, Transparency, Emission, Temperature)
The Std Volume medium also ignore the scales set in the modifier, and use the 'weight' parameters of the medium instead.
To use other tyFlow channels, there are additional 5 extra channels that can be used and make those tyFlow channels available to the Std Volume medium.
The typical use case is to set the tyFlow 'color' channel to the extra channel 1,
the tyFlow 'temperColor' channel to the extra channel 2,
and the tyFlow 'temperOpacity' channel to the extra channel 3, and use the usual channel settings for the others
(tyflow density, temperature, velocity to Octane Absorption, Emission, velocity)
Channel remapping
The first step is to read the values generated by tyFlow.
In the OctVolumeTyFlow modifier, enable 'Collect Min/Max values'
Then, open the Octane viewport to start rendering.
That will display the min and max values of each channel for the current frame in the modifier text box.
For example,
density -> Absorption [0.000, 1.000] shows that the tyFlow 'density' channel is assigned to the Octane 'Absorption' channel, and the values and in the range [0,1].
This channel do not need to be remapped.
temperature -> Emission [0.000, 5.500] shows that the tyFlow 'temperature' channel is assigned to the Octane 'Emission' channel, and the values and in the range [0, 5.5].
This channel should be remapped.
temperColor -> ExtraCh1 (0.00, 0.00, 0.00) - (15.00, 14.55, 14.78)
This channel should be remapped.
Use the 'Channel remapping' section and select one channel to edit.
Enable 'Remap channel'
Set Old Min and Old Max to the tyFlow values (eg Old Min:0, Old Max:15.00) and
Set New Min and New Max to the desired Octane values (eg New Min:0, New Max:1.00)
Once the remap is set, the 'Collect Min/Max values' can be disabled for better performance.
--- Other mediums
The other Octane mediums can be used (Absorption, Random walk, Scattering, Volume medium),
but the color channels won't be available.
----- Other settings
The OctVolumeTyFlow modifier has a Voxel size setting.
It is calculated by default using tyFlow settings and the System Unit.
It is possible to overwrite the voxel size by using the 'Custom Voxel size' checkbox.
When disabled, the current default value is displayed.
When enabled, any value can be set.
This will affect the how the Density and Volume step values are applied, and could be used to adjust the general density if some artifact are visible.
----- Known issues ----
When Octane viewport is open and rendering is in progress, and tyflow need to re-calculate the simulation, the simulation calculation can become very slow.
In this case, it is better to cancel the simulation and close Octane viewport. Move the time slider to the last frame to let tyFlow calculate all the frames, then re-open Octane viewport.
When Octane viewport is open, changing some settings in the tyFlow editor may not be detected. (eg changing the display preset from Classic to CoolMagic)
For those cases, use the Rebuild button in Octane viewport.
The current System Units influence how the result will look.
Some artifacts (blocks) may appear with 1 unit set to large values, like 1 Km.
Some tyFlow feature are not fully supported and may result in incorrect render.
For example, the Upres feature of the Inferno Recall operator produce incorrect position and size of the volume.
tyFlow object Inactive.
When loading a scene, the Birth Inferno operator of the tyFlow object may sometimes become inactive.
If that happens, just click on the Inactive buton to activate it.
This seems to be an issue with tyFlow, not related to Octane plugin.
3dsMax will crash when trying to render with Octane and tyFlow version lower than 2.007.
--- Samples ----
This is a simple fire created with tyFlow default settings, and no Octane setting or modifier.
Same as previous sample, but with the Octane OctVolumeTyFlow modifier.
The channels 'temperature' and 'temperColor' have been remapped to the [0,1] range
In the Std Volume medium (Map #12), the Emission color has been set to a light orange, that is multiplied with the temperColor channel
This illustrate the tyFlow Fire color in the Inferno Display operator. The preset 'Cool Magic' has been selected.
Same as previous sample, but with the Octane OctVolumeTyFlow modifier.
The modifier and the medium have been adjusted to match the tyFlow viewport display.
The first Inferno Emitter operator was setup with a color emission set to blue.
A second Inferno Emitter operator was added, with a color emission set to yellow.
Those colors are accessible to Octane via the 'color' channel, and is set in the Scatter color channel of the Std Volume medium
An Inferno Color operator was added, and uses a color gradient from blue to green.
Those colors are accessible to Octane via the 'color' channel, and is set in the Scatter color channel of the Std Volume medium
This uses the velocity with a scale of 200
The Octane object property for tyFlow001 has Object motion blur enabled, and the Render settings/Camera has Motion Blur enabled.
Adjust the shutter time to see the effect of the motion blur.
( need a good balance between voxel size in tyflow sim and voxel size in Octane )