Krakatoa

[kirillall]

Can you explain what your exact problem is (with images and possibly a scene file)? I generally don't recommend using Load Percentage anyway, it still processes all particles and just skips at the memory loading phase. So if you have 100 million particles, they will be fully processed including material evaluation etc. and then discarded. Using a PRT Loader's Every Nth by ID option is the best approach, assuming your particles are pre-saved to disk.
Hi Bobo. I have Fume simulation. I use PRTFume loader to fill it with krakatoa particles, but my fume simulation have small spacing, and smooth (no sand effect) on render. I need to make less dense of particles, almost to the type of sand.
As i understand right now particles dont have any ID, I make this magma rig and its gave me more random decrease of particles (not such obvious pattern effect, but its generate a bit pattern selection also). its pure luck, cause i new to magma. And i`m sure fo 99% that there is more correct and interesting solution for doing that.

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2012/08/14/12/57/8594598_bigthumb.jpg (http://www.picamatic.com/view/8594598_PRTFume_oscar_clear/)
Without any reducing

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2012/08/14/12/58/8594599_bigthumb.jpg (http://www.picamatic.com/view/8594599_PRTFume_oscar_load10-20/)
Some pattern is visible

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2012/08/14/12/59/8594600_bigthumb.jpg (http://www.picamatic.com/view/8594600_PRTFume_oscar_0-31fr_MyMagmaDelete/)
My MagmaFlow rig (0, 31 frame of animation)

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2012/08/14/01/00/8594601_bigthumb.jpg (http://www.picamatic.com/view/8594601_PRTFume_oscar_MagmaMy/)

[zoubein]

Hello All,

I am trying to scatter a PRT sequence over a piece of geometry(sphere) using the PRT cloner. Everything is working fine, except I would like the orientation of the prt sequences to be based on the normals of the object (sphere) that its scattered on. I am guessing that I need to add a get average normal to the property query. But I am not sure how to go about it or if its even the right way.

Thanks.

[Bobo]

Hello All,

I am trying to scatter a PRT sequence over a piece of geometry(sphere) using the PRT cloner. Everything is working fine, except I would like the orientation of the prt sequences to be based on the normals of the object (sphere) that its scattered on. I am guessing that I need to add a get average normal to the property query. But I am not sure how to go about it or if its even the right way.

Thanks.

What are you using as the distribution system for the PRT Cloner? PRT Volume? PRT Loader from the geometry vertices or from PFlow?

If you are using a PRT Volume from Sphere for your distribution system, then it is simple, since each particle already has a Normal. All you have to do is calculate the VectorCross product of the Normal with [0,0,1], Normalize the result and calculate the VectorCross of that result with the Normal and Normalize that. Then feed the first result into X, the second into Y, and the Normal into the Z input socket of a Convert>VectorsToQuat operator and feed that into the Orientation output channel. And voila, your distributed PRTs will be oriented to point with their Z axis along the sphere's normals.

If you are using a PRT Loader as the distribution system, you will need to use an InputGeometry node and a NearestPoint node to find the normal of the Sphere at the closest point to the particle, the rest is the same...

[zoubein]

Hey thanks for that Bobo. Unfortunately my math sucks so I wasn't able to fully understand what you meant. I gave it a go but I am getting an error in the nearest point node.


I am distributing PRT loaders on a PRT Volume. But in the magma flow that I attempted I used the geosphere that I used to create the volume to get the normals. Because that seemed simpler.

Thanks.

[Bobo]

Hey thanks for that Bobo. Unfortunately my math sucks so I wasn't able to fully understand what you meant. I gave it a go but I am getting an error in the nearest point node.


I am distributing PRT loaders on a PRT Volume. But in the magma flow that I attempted I used the geosphere that I used to create the volume to get the normals. Because that seemed simpler.

Thanks.

As I mentioned, the PRT Volume already has a Normal channel that contains the normals of the Geosphere. But in your case, all you need is drag from Lookup Point (WS) to create a Position input defining where you are sampling (at each particle!), converted to world space (it happens automatically if you just drag). And then you need a Normalize after the second VectorCross operator. Then it should work...

[zoubein]

Thank you! :thumbsup: got it working now, I also had to flip the connections in the vector cross to get it right. Cant wait to use this on monday at work.

[zoubein]

Hello


I had two other questions regarding the PRT cloner. Once you have aligned a PRT Loader object to another particle system or object and oriented it to the normal is there a way to also add a random local rotation to the PRT Loaders?

And the second question is I have a PRT sequence A which has 10 particles floating up and on each particle I want to clone another much heavier PRT sequence B. which works fine except all the particles in "sequence A" when they are born instead of playing Sequence B from the beginning frame 0, they play it from the current time. hope that made sense.

Thanks
Zoubein

[Bobo]

I had two other questions regarding the PRT cloner. Once you have aligned a PRT Loader object to another particle system or object and oriented it to the normal is there a way to also add a random local rotation to the PRT Loaders?

And the second question is I have a PRT sequence A which has 10 particles floating up and on each particle I want to clone another much heavier PRT sequence B. which works fine except all the particles in "sequence A" when they are born instead of playing Sequence B from the beginning frame 0, they play it from the current time. hope that made sense.


Yes, you can rotate the normal randomly inside the Magma modifier, but it is not exactly obvious. A Noise operator with the Position as input can generate a "random" value. Using the Random value, you could produce a random Quat from AngleAxis or EulerAngles (operator is found under Convert category), and then using the TransformByQuat rotate the original normal. I have attached an example (Max 2010+).

As for the animation playback, this is a current limitation of the system. I guess the reason behind it was that we didn't want each clone to be read on a different frame - it would be very slow to process. But we support animation control via a dedicated GeomTime channel in Frost, so the same approach could be applied to the PRT Cloner I guess. I will log it as a Wish.

[zoubein]

Thanks Bobo. :thumbsup:


When I open the file I am getting a

"Magma This node failed to load from disk. Please fix it.: | ID: 26 |" this is the rotate randomly node. Anyone else have this problem.

Looking forward to the presentation tonight in London.

[Bobo]

Thanks Bobo. :thumbsup:


When I open the file I am getting a

"Magma This node failed to load from disk. Please fix it.: | ID: 26 |" this is the rotate randomly node. Anyone else have this problem.

Looking forward to the presentation tonight in London.

Go get the latest build from the public beta folder.
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/krakatoa-downloads/builds-beta/
Obviously I am using something that your version of Magma does not have.

[hardikpatelanim]

Hey guys I have a particle simulation. 6million particles. I want about 20% OF THE TOTAL PARTICLES TO GLITTER. How can i do that with magma flow.

thanks

[Glacierise]

Take the id and use the mod operation, that gives the remainder of division. Mod with 5, and for the particles that the result is less than 2, you can make the selection channel 1. Then in a separate magmaflow you can use that selection to make them glitter.

[hardikpatelanim]

Glacierise (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=239747) thank you so much for your reply.. As i have never used krakatoa before so i am still on a learning curve. I tried to do something as per ur guidance. but i dont know if i am doing it right or wrong. so please help me out with it.

check jpg files for the magma flow connection i used for it. its not working so i am sure i did something wrong.

magma flow1 i used for selection and magmaflow 3 for glitter.

please help me out with it. thanks :)

[Bobo]

It is really not necessary to have two flows for this.
I would suggest you figure out how you want to implement your glitter on 100% of the particles first (your glitter flow makes little sense to me, but I might be misunderstanding something). There are many ways to do the glitter, but let's assume you want to modify the Color over time via a Noise based on some input parameter (probably not Density, but current time + ID or Position or something like that). Then simply create a Logic Switch operator that is set to True when your Modulo operation produces the expected result, and set the Color output to the modified value, otherwise set the Color to the input Color channel without modification. This way, the percent of particles that pass the Modulo-based test will change their color and the others won't...

Start with 1000 or so particles and figure out how the flicker should work. Then add the Logic for the percentage. Then apply to the millions of particles...

[hardikpatelanim]

Hey Bobo. thanks for the awesome plugin. back to the topic. i took ur advice. and got something to work. but it is still not looking really like that.. i am sharing you my kcm script please. have a look at it. thanks a lot

[hardikpatelanim]

hey sorry.. this one makes more sense and it is more cleaner.. i thought i cannot plug in vector to switch so i was converting them to scalar. lol my bad.

[Bobo]

Hey Bobo. thanks for the awesome plugin. back to the topic. i took ur advice. and got something to work. but it is still not looking really like that.. i am sharing you my kcm script please. have a look at it. thanks a lot

Does not look like something that would work...
I have attached a possible solution based on the ID channel (assuming there is one, you can switch ID to Index if not), and the current time to cause the Noise to change over time.
There is a control which affects the Nth particle (when set to 5, every 5th particle will change color, the other 4 will keep their color). Also there is a value controlling the strength of the Noise.

[hardikpatelanim]

:applause:that works like a charm.. thanks for that.. :)

[Arreador]

Hi, Bobo, i send you a message, but, post this problem anyway. Using PRT Hair have this issue
My render crash when i try to render more than 40000 hairs with the hair and fur modifier, with no splines. A message like "out of memory " appears and dont do the render.
Have no problem with less that 40000 hairs.

Any help??

Thankss!!

[Bobo]

Hi, Bobo, i send you a message, but, post this problem anyway. Using PRT Hair have this issue
My render crash when i try to render more than 40000 hairs with the hair and fur modifier, with no splines. A message like "out of memory " appears and dont do the render.
Have no problem with less that 40000 hairs.

Could it be that you are actually running out of memory? :)

Please post the version of Max, Krakatoa and Windows (32/64 bit?), as well as your hardware specs.

I just created a Teapot, added a Hair&Fur modifier and requested 50,000 hairs with all other settings at default. I did this on my laptop (dual i7, 8GB RAM). My RAM was already at 5.5GB due to too many tabs in Chrome, but Krakatoa only used about 165MB of RAM and rendered 6.1 million particles from the 50K hairs without a problem.

Open Task Manager and watch your RAM while you are trying to render. Do you see any spikes?

[Arreador]

Hi, BObo, thanks for the reply.!
I have i7 processor, 16gb ram, win7 64bits, max 2012, Krakatoa MX 2.0.1.46319.
And your right, i`m out of memory with 60000 hairs.
But, i do a test with more spacing that 0.1, and its render, the problem is that the particles appears to spacing, dont look like hairs.

Is splines a better method?

thanks.

[Bobo]

Hi, BObo, thanks for the reply.!
I have i7 processor, 16gb ram, win7 64bits, max 2012, Krakatoa MX 2.0.1.46319.
And your right, i`m out of memory with 60000 hairs.
But, i do a test with more spacing that 0.1, and its render, the problem is that the particles appears to spacing, dont look like hairs.

Is splines a better method?

thanks.

Do you get any feedback about the number of particles it tries to create?
Normally, Krakatoa on a 64 bit system should never run out of memory.
Also, have you tried the latest beta 2.1.4 build posted on our website? It is possible that we fixed something since your build was released...
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/krakatoa-downloads/builds-beta/

[silwerfeldt]

I´m trying to render my RealFlow Grid Domain particles using Krakatoa, but I only get a black picture...

I load them with a PRT loader and i can see them in my viewport but as soon as i render (wit a simple light) I get a black picture. If I load my Splash particles insetad everything renders fine...

My Grid Domain have almost 15 million particles but that shouldn´t be any problem, right?
Any ideas?

Sorry if this is a stupid question - I´m new to Krakatoa so there will be some newbie questions...

Cheers

[zoubein]

Have you checked the alpha channel in your render window to see if the particles show up there? It could just be that you need to have more lights and adjust your density.

[silwerfeldt]

Have you checked the alpha channel in your render window to see if the particles show up there? It could just be that you need to have more lights and adjust your density.

Thanks for your quick reply and yes I have checked my Alpha but its just black - empty picture...

When it renders it calculates the light and retireveing the 14.5 million particles and renders...
Just black. Very strange.

I use a PRT loader to load my .Bin file - If I load my splash or foam it works fine... They have much less particles but I have rendered alot mor particles than 15 million in krakatoa!

[silwerfeldt]

Thanks for your quick reply and yes I have checked my Alpha but its just black - empty picture...

When it renders it calculates the light and retireveing the 14.5 million particles and renders...
Just black. Very strange.

I use a PRT loader to load my .Bin file - If I load my splash or foam it works fine... They have much less particles but I have rendered alot mor particles than 15 million in krakatoa!

I think I found the problem... I tried to override my density with a pure white and then it renders fine... Why my density is black from realflow I don´t know...

Cheers

[JohnnyRandom]

I have run into this as well.

You can also add a KCM to the PRT Loader, just pipe a float of 1.0 into the density channel.

EDIT: Sorry for the short reply I was sending it from my phone. The actual grid.bin (if that is what you are using) appearantly does not populate the density channel like a normal realflow emitter object would so you need to add a value into the density. You can get fancy with it by introducing some of other channels such as velocity or vorticity and do some basic math functions on them to get some different effects.

[Bobo]

I think I found the problem... I tried to override my density with a pure white and then it renders fine... Why my density is black from realflow I don´t know...

Cheers

RealFlow has its own Density channel which means something else completely. Under certain conditions, it might get set to 0.0 (I think one case was reflowing particles through a Hybrido simulation to produce Vorticity, but that was a few versions ago and there might be other cases too).

So you need to reset the Density of the particles to 1.0 as suggested by others (and as you have found out already). A Magma modifier is the better solution.

[JohnnyRandom]

A Magma modifier is the better solution.

Ah, sorry, I keep calling them KCM's, old habits.

I realize they still exist but are depreciated.

[CerberusC]

Has anyone received this message while trying to use the "Depth Map File Sequence" for a matte?


depthbuffer_singleface::resample() - Input size: (size2t 1920,1080) is not a valid supersample of: (size2t 512,512)

[FxJunior]

Hey guys I'm newbie.
I have done one naiad simulation and export wetmap emp format to prt format. now my question is how to use prt particle in material id in 3dsmax??
Just stuck here!......Need help guys :(
I want a achieve proper wetmap result on my object.
Thanks in advanced guys :bowdown:

[CerberusC]

Has anyone received this message while trying to use the "Depth Map File Sequence" for a matte?


depthbuffer_singleface::resample() - Input size: (size2t 1920,1080) is not a valid supersample of: (size2t 512,512)


I want to autoanswer this, the Thinkbox guys answered me, and they told me that they've found a small bug where you can't use the Depth map matte if you are using shadows in the scene, because the shadowmap size and the depth map matte "collides", but they gave me a workaround while they fix the bug.

1.- Set your scene without the depth map matte or any other matte.
2.- make sure you have all the shadow lights active
3.- resave the particles to PRT but this time, bake the lighting into them
4.- reuse the particles with the prt loader and the lighting channel you saved, this will give you the particle shadows and lighting baked.
5.- activate ignore scene lights
6.- render the scene with your auto-lit particles

Cheers.

[Bobo]

I want to autoanswer this, the Thinkbox guys answered me, and they told me that they've found a small bug ....

LOL, thanks for calling it "small", but it is in fact such a HUGE bug it could star in "Starship Troopers"! :) The whole "Initial Depth Maps" workflow is pretty much broken in 2.x and we have it on our ToDo list (as soon as the Win8 frenzy is over).
Very sorry about that!

[Inferno Acid]

LOL, thanks for calling it "small", but it is in fact such a HUGE bug it could start in "Starship Troopers"! :) The whole "Initial Depth Maps" workflow is pretty much broken in 2.x and we have it on our ToDo list (as soon as the Win8 frenzy is over).
Very sorry about that!

I would like to say that I'm having the same big problems too, I really need to use depth matte because Krakatoa just keeps crashing when I add too many matte objects, and it seems to be broken in 2.1.1.47356

When can we expect a patch? :) So I can write it down in my planning.

Thanks Bobo!

[Inferno Acid]

LOL, thanks for calling it "small", but it is in fact such a HUGE bug it could start in "Starship Troopers"! :) The whole "Initial Depth Maps" workflow is pretty much broken in 2.x and we have it on our ToDo list (as soon as the Win8 frenzy is over).
Very sorry about that!

Ha! Sorry about that BoBo, you guys released the new beta a couple of days ago. It all works fine now :) Thanks anyway!

[ghoul]

Hi there,

first of all, I did google. A lot. But after all the effort, couldn't find the solution to correctly open Krakatoa rendered files with an alpha channel in AE. This "solution" doesn't work:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=6980981&postcount=1409
...tried it and, although it does look ok at first, as soon as you add any layer behind it (even pure black!!) the premultiplied alpha just eats away all of the fine details.

Besides that, I tried tga, exr, tif. Tried gamma and no gamma in Max. Tried with or without color profiles in AE. Tried 32bit...

So, please, once again - has anyone ever successfully opened a krakatoa rendered file with alpha in AE, so it looks exactly like in VFB?

Thanks.

[Phlok]

I do not use AE for reasons like this, but I remember AF people having used my Krakatoa renderings without any difficulties, but that was two years ago.

If one of my teammates has difficulties opening renderings from me in AE (this goes for anything and is not specifically Krakatoa related), I usually import the files into Nuke and have Nuke export the files in a format AE finds more acceptable. This did solve any problem with AE being unable to open some files so far.

[JohnnyRandom]

AE needs improved handling for .exr, period. There is something really not right with it. Sadly, it is perfect example of third party integration not seeing proper scrutiny for current standards and proper functionality. It is a bummer since AE is the standardized tool for comping mograph.

[apfxpunk]

I have made a particle simulation in maya. I want to render them in maya.
here is my problem.

1)I am unable to export lifespanPP attribute to Krakatoa.

*I used realflow bin exporter. and imported in Prt loader. I get age but no lifeSpanPP.

I want to fade particles as they die.
so i was trying to use age divided by LifespanPP. As i dont have lifespanPP i cant do that. is there any work around for this.

I have also used Maya 2 krakatoa plugin. but it does not have age and lifespanPP

i will really appreciate your help.

thanks

[apfxpunk]

I have made a particle simulation in maya. I want to render them in krakatoa *

[Bobo]

I have made a particle simulation in maya. I want to render them in Krakatoa.
here is my problem.

1)I am unable to export lifespanPP attribute to Krakatoa.

*I used realflow bin exporter. and imported in Prt loader. I get age but no lifeSpanPP.

I want to fade particles as they die.
so i was trying to use age divided by LifespanPP. As i dont have lifespanPP i cant do that. is there any work around for this.

I have also used Maya 2 krakatoa plugin. but it does not have age and lifespanPP

i will really appreciate your help.

thanks

I am assuming you are talking about Krakatoa MX (3ds Max) and not the Krakatoa MY Beta for Maya.

A possible workaround would be to do the calculation via an expression in Maya itself. For example if the Color channel is not being used for anything creative, you could set up a Ramp expression that changes the color from white to black over the age of the particle, and use that in a Magma modifier to convert the Color gradient to Density and replace the Color with something else.

Right now the lifespanPP is not being saved even by the current Krakatoa for Maya build's PRT saver we are working on. I will talk to the developer to see if we can put that in at some point. IMHO any channel available in Maya should be supported for saving, even if it does not have an obvious Krakatoa use. lifespanPP makes sense in the context of Magma channel editing, but we don't have Magma in Krakatoa for Maya just yet.

[apfxpunk]

I am assuming you are talking about Krakatoa MX (3ds Max) and not the Krakatoa MY Beta for Maya.

A possible workaround would be to do the calculation via an expression in Maya itself. For example if the Color channel is not being used for anything creative, you could set up a Ramp expression that changes the color from white to black over the age of the particle, and use that in a Magma modifier to convert the Color gradient to Density and replace the Color with something else.

Right now the lifespanPP is not being saved even by the current Krakatoa for Maya build's PRT saver we are working on. I will talk to the developer to see if we can put that in at some point. IMHO any channel available in Maya should be supported for saving, even if it does not have an obvious Krakatoa use. lifespanPP makes sense in the context of Magma channel editing, but we don't have Magma in Krakatoa for Maya just yet.

Thanks Bobo. :) you are always a great help. Yes I am using Krakatoa Mx(3ds max) I will try that out on monday at work. I am pretty sure gradient should work out.

As I already have age attribute in my PRT loader, I was also wondering if there is anything i can do the recall final age of each particle and store that in an channel. so basically if i can recall final age i will have lifespanPP. Its just something I thought could be helpful to have it. And you will be the best person to answer this question.

thanks again Bobo :)

[Bobo]

As I already have age attribute in my PRT loader, I was also wondering if there is anything i can do the recall final age of each particle and store that in an channel. so basically if i can recall final age i will have lifespanPP. Its just something I thought could be helpful to have it. And you will be the best person to answer this question.

Well, you need a way to save the lifespanPP, and from your initial post it is obvious you cannot. In theory, a PRT file can contain arbitrary channels, but in the case of Maya, it depends on what the developer of the PRT saver plugin has mapped from Maya channels to Krakatoa channels. You could modify the open source Maya PRT saver to add that channel if you feel inclined (and have the necessary knowledge).
And as I mentioned, even our upcoming Krakatoa MY does not save the lifespan channel right now (although I think it should). If you are using the BIN file saving, you probably have even less control over what gets saved since the BIN file has a relatively strict data channel structure.
Use the Gradient workaround for now, and I will see if I can get the Krakatoa MY developers to add support for more channels including lifespanPP. As I explained in my previous post, saving lifespanPP makes little sense within Krakatoa MY because it is not used directly by the renderer, and there is no Magma support yet. But when sharing data with Krakatoa MX, it makes perfect sense together with Age...

[apfxpunk]

well Said Bobo.. thanks for all your input and time.. I have learned a lot from your post as usual :)

[ShortFuseNZ]

I have a Realflow Simualtion using Hybrido with a boat hull moving through it. Is there any info using Krakatoa on how to cull or delete particles that have little motion or are static. The idea being I can render particles that have motion white to create the effect of underwater foam.

[Bobo]

I have a Realflow Simualtion using Hybrido with a boat hull moving through it. Is there any info using Krakatoa on how to cull or delete particles that have little motion or are static. The idea being I can render particles that have motion white to create the effect of underwater foam.

In theory, the Velocity channel of the BIN files created in RealFlow should be enough to do that. Have you looked at this tutorial which discusses a similar situation?
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/krakatoa-realflow-and-frost

You can ignore the Frost/PRT Volume multiplication part but use the "Isolating Foam By Velocity" part. Instead of or in addition to setting the Density, you could also set the Selection channel to (1.0-Density) and drop a Krakatoa Delete to delete particles with Density of 0...

[ShortFuseNZ]

Thank you Bobo, your assistance is legendary. I had read that tutorial but never made the connection to use it in that manner. Will post up some results when Real Flow has finished simulating, give it a few months.

[wxyz]

Hi there,

first of all, I did google. A lot. But after all the effort, couldn't find the solution to correctly open Krakatoa rendered files with an alpha channel in AE. This "solution" doesn't work:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=6980981&postcount=1409
...tried it and, although it does look ok at first, as soon as you add any layer behind it (even pure black!!) the premultiplied alpha just eats away all of the fine details.

Besides that, I tried tga, exr, tif. Tried gamma and no gamma in Max. Tried with or without color profiles in AE. Tried 32bit...

So, please, once again - has anyone ever successfully opened a krakatoa rendered file with alpha in AE, so it looks exactly like in VFB?

Thanks.
What he said

[bkravi]

Hi Bobo,

Is it possible to randomize the sizes of the Krakatoa particles?

Thanks

[Bobo]

Hi Bobo,

Is it possible to randomize the sizes of the Krakatoa particles?

Thanks

Not directly. Krakatoa particles are points which affect one or more pixels depending on the filtering mode. A particle with low density will generally appear sub-pixel sized. A Particle drawn with Bilinear filter can be blurred over many pixels, but you have no per-particle control over that. Same applies to drawing with DOF where particles out of focus can appear as larger circles, but you cannot control that per particle.

It is possible to create a small sphere cloud of particles, assign to another cloud using PRT Cloner and control the scale of these "spheres" via the Scaling channel. But this can be very expensive if you replace each of one million particles with 100 particles...

This question comes up very often and we have it on our Wishlist for future versions of Krakatoa. But in general it is not part of the current design.

[bkravi]

Thanks a lot Bobo! it will be great to also see per particle color, velocity randomization in future versions.

Thank you for Great tool and continues Support! Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

[Bobo]

Thanks a lot Bobo! it will be great to also see per particle color

What do you mean?
There is already per-particle Color (and per-particle anything, really, including Emission, Absorption, Density, SpecularPower, SpecularLevel) and pretty much every parameter available in the Shading settings. Most of these are accessible through Magma and can be controlled also by Max Standard Materials and Maps.

Am I missing something?

[bkravi]

What do you mean?
There is already per-particle Color (and per-particle anything, really, including Emission, Absorption, Density, SpecularPower, SpecularLevel) and pretty much every parameter available in the Shading settings. Most of these are accessible through Magma and can be controlled also by Max Standard Materials and Maps.

Am I missing something?


Hi Bobo

my mistake, I didn't knew that these channels are per particle already!

Its great, Thank you!

[zoubein]

hey all particle junkies.

for some reason I cannot get particle shadows on my geometry, I have gone through the process a few times and the shadow files are being created they seem to be coming out blank , and when I switch renders to scanline I am not getting any shadows.

I have 4 prt objects, I have 3 lights one shadow casting, set to kraktoa shadows and I have save attenuation on. The paths are all ok, but still no shadows, I feel like i am missing something simple here. Using Max 2012 latest build of Krakatoa MX

[zoubein]

hey all particle junkies.

for some reason I cannot get particle shadows on my geometry, I have gone through the process a few times and the shadow files are being created they seem to be coming out blank , and when I switch renders to scanline I am not getting any shadows.

I have 4 prt objects, I have 3 lights one shadow casting, set to kraktoa shadows and I have save attenuation on. The paths are all ok, but still no shadows, I feel like i am missing something simple here. Using Max 2012 latest build of Krakatoa MX

Ok I guess i didn't know this but it seems to be fine when you render the sequence but the shadows dont show up when you just render a single frame.

[silwerfeldt]

I´m having trouble rendering realflow splashes with 2 matte objects (fbx object from maya). The splashes looks cool (rendered as voxels). My problem is that my matte object is way to jagged. I have turbosmooth on my objects and tried raising the supersampling but I see no difference between 1 and 10...

I´ve read about the Render elements and tried to set upp krakatoa occludedLayer and made sure that save multiple layers are checked in Matte objects.

When I render there is nothing in the occludedLayer and the render looks the same. The velocity and z-depth looks fine....

What can i do to make the matte object smooth?

I´m on max 2013 and using the latest Beta

[Bobo]

When I render there is nothing in the occludedLayer and the render looks the same. The velocity and z-depth looks fine....

I was able to reproduce the problem. It works in Particle mode, but in Voxel mode the OccludedLayer seems to produce nothing.

I have logged it as a bug and we will check to see what is causing that.
Thank you for reporting it!

[silwerfeldt]

I was able to reproduce the problem. It works in Particle mode, but in Voxel mode the OccludedLayer seems to produce nothing.

I have logged it as a bug and we will check to see what is causing that.
Thank you for reporting it!
Thanks a bunch I didn´t report it becasue it was the first time I used Occluded layer and was unsure if i did it right...

Maybe i can render the splashes as particles instead...

Cheers

[AdrienSliver]

Hi everyone, I would like to know how is it possible in max 2013 to create a collision map without TP and Snowprint (http://www.zwischendrin.com/en/detail/233) ? I'm working with a prt loader and Frost. And my goal is to create a wetmap. Could you help me ? Any script on scriptspot available for max 2012 or 2013.

Maybe Thinkbox could integrate this features ?

Thank you very much for your help :)

[DeKo-LT]

Particle Flow have Shape Mark operator.

P.S. if you need use PRT, you can load cached PRT with Krakatoa PRT Birth Loader.

[zoubein]

There is also a Lume stain shader that can be used.

[AdrienSliver]

Deko thank you, I will test with the shape mark

[AdrienSliver]

Hello guy, I'm wondering something about Krakatoa and particles about Normal attributes.

Is it possible in Krakatoa to render each particles with a normal to increase realism, like in maya with normalPP and in houdini with N attributes ? thank you a lot

[Glacierise]

http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/krakatoa-channels/ :)

[AdrienSliver]

thanks hristo, and to render normal if I'm right, I need to follow this graph
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/storage/thumbnails/8169217-15703737-thumbnail.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1324512050609 ? :)

[Glacierise]

The viewport vector is just the lines you see in the viewport - it doesn't have a part in the rendering. But the normal is just a vector, so you can send it to the color channel.

[Bobo]

Hello guy, I'm wondering something about Krakatoa and particles about Normal attributes.

Is it possible in Krakatoa to render each particles with a normal to increase realism, like in maya with normalPP and in houdini with N attributes ? thank you a lot

I recommend watching these, esp. the second and the third.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eudomaAnI6o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhNsN289pcU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xOR_jqDhME

Also note that you can get the Perturb channel of a texture map and add it to the Normal via Magma to render Bump Mapping...

Note that Normals will be used automatically if Krakatoa is switched to Phong Shading mode or set to calculate environment reflection maps. In Krakatoa MX 2, you can even raytrace the environment and matte objects.
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/krakatoa-raytaced-reflections
No Magma is needed for that...

Krakatoa assumes the X axis of the particle's orientation as the Normal, so if using PFlow or TP, you have to orient your particles respectively, for example by the surface normals. When rendering PRT Volumes, the Normals are acquired automatically.

[AdrienSliver]

@Glacierise, thank you for your explanations about the previous graph

@bobo, thank you also for your help, I will watch this videos.

Actually I'm working with Naiad, I've exported my particles with Normal attributes, and load them into max with a prt loader. That's why I would like a normal on my splash particles.

In order to render normal, if I'm right I must use : phong surface only ? without using magma modifier

[Bobo]

Actually I'm working with Naiad, I've exported my particles with Normal attributes, and load them into max with a prt loader. That's why I would like a normal on my splash particles.

In order to render normal, if I'm right I must use : phong surface only ? without using magma modifier

Depends on what you want to do with the Normals :)
If you want specular highlights, the Phong Surface mode might be what you want.
If you want to tweak the look based on the normal direction relative to light without taking the camera into account (Lambert shading by the cosine of the angle), you could do that with Magma. You CAN implement Phong with Magma if you want to do something special to it not available in the built in shader.

Are you using Krakatoa 1.6 or 2.0+?
In the latter case, you should be using the new Magma modifier and not the old KCM one...

[AdrienSliver]

I'm working on krakatoa 2.1 with the new magmaflow modifier.

Actually, I'm searching how to create interesting result in order to create realistic splash like this : http://www.oceansandaquaculture.org/wallpapers/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/shark_jump.jpg

I'm not an expert with magmaflow for the moment, but I'm learning it since few weeks.
My particles data are : Position, Velocity, Droplet, ID, Age, Normal, Color, Density.

So I'm open to follow your advices bobo. :)

[jigu]

I'm working on krakatoa 2.1 with the new magmaflow modifier.

Actually, I'm searching how to create interesting result in order to create realistic splash like this : http://www.oceansandaquaculture.org/wallpapers/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/shark_jump.jpg

I'm not an expert with magmaflow for the moment, but I'm learning it since few weeks.
My particles data are : Position, Velocity, Droplet, ID, Age, Normal, Color, Density.

So I'm open to follow your advices bobo. :)

Well from that image, it looks like less spray/foam type thing. I am not sure about using magmaflow to color particles But you can use some absorption and emission in krakatoa to get nice scattering in those particles.

Apart from that I would use Frost for meshing (I believe you use naiad so probably you could have separate Splash PRT object?) Frost will work best and give you really nice mesh.

And for shading, If you would use mentalray, you can try A&D material with 0.0 diffuse value and 1.0 for reflection and 1.0 for refraction and turn on "self illumination" for A&D material and set its value in unitless and adjust value for your need, 0.4 or 0.3 or maybe more you would need. That's what I did in this video I created : https://vimeo.com/46018322
And yes forgot to mention, that you can also add up slow moving animated noise map as bump map in A&D material, this way you can break down splash into more details.

But make sure to use real 3d motionblur for the trick. I am not sure about settings in vray, but I suppose you can use SSS in vray or achieve same material using it.

[AdrienSliver]

thank's a lot jigu, this morning I have test frost for my splash particles and the render with vray is interesting, you're right. So I will use krakatoa for the foam and frost for splash when I'm near the camera. :beer:

[jigu]

thank's a lot jigu, this morning I have test frost for my splash particles and the render with vray is interesting, you're right. So I will use krakatoa for the foam and frost for splash when I'm near the camera. :beer:

Looking forward to your test. :)

Though as you brought this to shading with Krakatoa, It would be interesting to see if Krakatoa supports refractive shading now? Or if there is any plan for future? Are there any tests done with Krakatoa before for refractive shading?

[AdrienSliver]

This is my test
http://uppix.3dvf.com/images/dSA9I.jpg

I'm going to continue my tests :)

[boumay]

Hello,
I'm working on an earth scene and wondering the best technique to get realistic clouds.
I was thinking that krakatoa would be adequate, but I would to know if it is doable.
I wanted to use the old magma preset of clouds applied to prt volume of a sphere with alpha map to create holes.
What do you think? Or is there a better approach?
Thank you.

[Wirginia]

Hi,

I started with Krakatoa not long time ago and jumped straight to deep water. Most of things work fine. I followed these tutorials:
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/krak-image-plane-dissolve/
http://www.studiodaily.com/2009/04/disintegrate-geometry-objects-using-frantic-films-krakatoa-and-autodesk-3ds-max/

And there is just one thing I can't figure out. Every time I render sequence at some point in simulation I get particles in two places - on the original position (where mesh was) and blown by wind. When I render just single frame it renders fine. What I'm doing wrong?

Thank you.

[Wirginia]

I just found what I have done wrong - Saving too many frames of cash and then using them as PRT loader in PFlow confused Krakatoa. Looks like it doesn't like to be told what to do with particles twice.

[rusty149]

Hello All,

I have a FumeFX sim that I am trying to kill off towards the end using density, I want to use the Velocity Channel or temp ect to do this, and am getting a bit stuck in MagmaFlow.

I can set up all the velocity fine in Magmaflow, and I have also been through the documentation on the Thinkbox site about density and age - but can't work out how to apply those principles to making it work with density.

My Super basic setup below...

My Basic MagmaFlow (http://www.flickr.com/photos/57876772@N03/8572104438/)


Anyhelp would be massively appreciated!

Thanks,
Rusty

[zoubein]

_____________

[zoubein]

@Rusty

I think what you are missing is the node converting the velocity to magnitude before you divide with the float.

[mcflait]

Someone knows, how render 360 degrees in Krakatoa? i have added a Krakatoa camera, with override fov at 360 but my 360 is not the same that my vray 360 render.

[silwerfeldt]

I´m trying to render out splashes from realflow. I have a corridor as matteobject and i´m trying to render the splashes out without have the corridor to cast shadows on the krakatoa particles.

It seems like krakatoa don´t care if i set the object properties to not cast shadows...

How do i have an object as matteobject and at the same time not to have it cast shadows..

Cheers and thanks in advance

**UPDATE** I got it working after a MAX crash... It worked when i restarted the scene?..

[zoubein]

Did you try excluding the walls from casting shadows from the light itself through the include/exclude?

[VladimirStefanovic]

Hey guys, can you help me out on converting input density channel to a output color in MagmaFlow?

I already tried and made both a magnitude and a velocity test and although they look good in static frames, it doesn't look as realistic in motion, as its a slow motion splash from a cup, soon as the liquid reaches its highest "peak" before gravity takes over, frost changes color from white(foam) back to black(liquid) and then back to white as it starts falling...

And I can't find any explanation on how to set density to color, or any better method?

Thanks :)

[Glacierise]

You should keep in mind that Krakatoa is history independent - you can't use a previous state to define a following state. If you want to shade based on some events that happen with your particles (as opposed to some of their properties in the current moment), it would be better to mark these events with some datachannel coming from the simulation.

[VladimirStefanovic]

You should keep in mind that Krakatoa is history independent - you can't use a previous state to define a following state. If you want to shade based on some events that happen with your particles (as opposed to some of their properties in the current moment), it would be better to mark these events with some datachannel coming from the simulation.
How would you go about doing that in realflow(we are not using hybrido)? We have two separate systems - one for foam and one for liquid.
Liquid was simulated first and cashed, and then added foam reacts to falling ice cubes depending on liquid cash.
We are trying to get a gradient on the thinnest points of foam. Also we are using .prt files if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

[Glacierise]

I think you might be able to do thinness by getting the number of particles around a particle, with the ParticleSumCount node. I'd try that :) On the Realflow side - I haven't really used it much :)