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I costately see all other DCC apps getting easy, well optimized environmental fog/volumetrics working wonderful with Octane.
In Max they don't work. 2018 here. what am i missing?

PS: i can't even duplicate this 8 Year old techinique.
Also, the outstanding lacking of visual/learning of 3dsmax and octane is huge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGQI5_gjgzs

cheers

Hi MartinBoom
Medium environment should be considered as a kind of atmospheric effect.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=56728&p=291355&hili ... um#p291355

You can try using a traditional fog cube
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=59549&p=304625&hilit=fog#p304633

Best using the "unit volume" node
viewtopic.php?f=51&t=82067&p=426574&hilit=+fog#p426574

Alternatively you could try using vectron
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=78552&p=405269&hilit=+coilbook#p405269

Regards
Paride

Thanks Paride,

i'll try the last two methods. the other ones are really full of problems and limitations.
i've seen caustic/focuesed volume effects in cinema. wondering what are the limitations here.

Hi MartinBoom,
The video you shared is using a medium node in the DayLight:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=56728&p=291355&hili ... um#p291355
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=56599
I don't understand what issues you're referring to. Are you sure you've correctly set up your Kernel?
Regards
Paride

I was also struggling a lot with fog when begin to use octane render.
I personally believe part of the reason that octane's fog is a problem for us,
is the default model of medium is based on a bad assumption which made the fog effect very flat.
that is the default medium is preset as a sphere which is around the camera lens, what we usually expect is a gradually fall off effect that means the fog should around the object instead of the lens, but seems otoy do not want to change this basic assumption...

To complement Paride's messages, here is a page on Octane's volume.

A new section will be added to specifically cover "environmental fog".

I'm still a big fan of the 2D Specular Plane hack. Place a plane to cover the camera's FOV. It can be quite small, and a child of the camera object. Make a Specular material with both an IOR and Transmission of 1. Add a Scattering Medium to the plane and you've got a simple, fast volumetric fog that interacts with lights (glows, god rays, etc.) and that can be moved a set distance (and scaled accordingly) from the camera to determine the starting range of the effect.

This trick was broken for a while in some older version of Octane, but it works again, at least as of Octane 2023.

There are lots of other, more refined ways of doing it, but as a quick 'n' dirty trick when you just need to get it out the door fast, it works wonders. Here's a simple example. This is not a split A/B render comparison, but a single render with the "fog filter" positioned to only cover the left half of the frustrum. It works for murky underwater shots, distant landscape haze, whatever.

great little trick, will be using this over the box version from now on! amazing, thanks!