Krakatoa

#541

Oh wasnt aware of that feature, been wondering what the chameleon stuff was all about…:scream:
Gotta get on to it tomorrow.

Cheers matey.

#542

Voxel engine is still in beta. The Bouncing Brain Chad did was voxel and the Chameleon was point.

#543

Just to double check this. There is no way to use krakatoa as a standalone command line render?
I would like to use it with maya, make my particles with maya, convert to realflow format, and then just render with krakatoa.
(and bore you until you give up and write maya plugin… :wink:

Thanks

Als

#544

You can do all this, you “just” need a copy of 3ds Max (which you probably dislike already, as any good Maya user ;))

Seriously, there WAS a way to use Krakatoa as a stand-alone command line renderer. This is how it started (if you read the whole thread, you will find some details). The main reason for it to be stand-alone in those early days was that 32bit with 2-3GB of RAM could process only around 50M particles, and we needed WAY more than that (in Superman Returns we comped up to 1 billion per frame). Once 64 bit became available, it became possible to integrate Krakatoa into our 3D application of choice, and in the mean time the two have become inseparable workflow-wise. There is still a slight chance for the stand-alone version to become available some day, but this is not a promise.

Using a stand-alone version was a PITA since it required both particles AND matte geometry to be exported to external file formats (PRT for particles, XML for the scene description and a simple mesh format for the geometry). Compared to the current “Hit a button and 10 seconds later you have the image” workflow it was just painfully slow.

#545

Thanks for the information.
I guess it’s not really realistic to expect standalone nor maya version.
I just always wanted to render millions of particles with maya…

As someone once said:
Good particles go to Krakatoa, bad particles go elsewhere…

Als

#546

From a workflow standpoint, I don’t see much of a point to having a standalone renderer, other than it not being tethered to 3ds max. There just isn’t much functionality to be gained, but a lot to be lost.

If all you wanted was to import particles as well as lights and cameras, I bet you could do all that via maxscript and have that process be a custom Deadline job type.

Not sure it would be worth it, though, as Krakatoa requires a tremendous amount of tweaking. The slightest little changes in density can cause dramatic changes in look, so you really have to “develop” a render with numerous iterations.

#547

This is true. A possible solution would resemble Gelato - it provided a nice API to connect to and we were able to run it from inside of Max much like Max runs mental ray (and Maya runs about anything). It would feel like an internal renderer but in reality the 3D application would be calling it transparently to the user as an external one, performing all data conversion behind the scenes. Such a renderer could then be integrated into Max, Maya, XSI etc. The particle data would be sent to the renderer via its API without the need for an intermediate format, and the same would happen with camera, lights and geometry data.

The trouble is the stand-alone renderer we had was not designed for this. If this ever happens, it would be a major rewrite of what we know as Krakatoa today and would require significant personal resources on both the renderer side and the connection side.

#548

Hey buddies, been doing some experiments with RealFlow n Krakatoa, check it out
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=736907

Cheers.

#549

Cool stuff!
Have you checked out the current Beta of Krakatoa?

#550

Hi Bobo,

I havent used yet, I’m pretty busy at the moment, but will check it out as soon as I have some free time. I really wanna look much deeper into Krakatoa, I feel like I just been scratching the surfice.
A few days ago was trying to save particles as .bin files to load into RealFlow, but didnt quite manage to load them as sequence, altho if I select single frame RealFlow does load them. Think theres a lot of potencial for incressing the resolution in RealFlow by loading the particles into Max, then use the noise modifier create several copies of the flow n load em back into RealFlow for meshing.

Cheers.

#551

Since both you and me have figured out the problem, it might be useful to post the details here.

First of all, here are the RealFlow BIN notes from our website:
http://www.franticfilms.com/software/support/krakatoa/bin_file_format.php
The last paragraphs explain why a BIN file saved out of Krakatoa with less than 5 trailing digits would cause problems in RealFlow.

Krakatoa has an optional precaution for this case - if you enter a file name in the file name field or press the BIN button next to the file name in the Detailed Path Controls area, a warning will pop up explaining why a BIN file must end with 5 digits and provide an automatic fix.
But it turned out that using the […] button to specify the whole save path does not call this test function, resulting in a file name that is perfectly valid in Krakatoa but not matching the specs of RealFlow.
This omission in the Krakatoa GUI has been fixed for the next release. Until then, be sure to provide 5 explicit digits in the BIN file name when saving from Krakatoa.

#552

Hi,

I’m loading particles from a prt_loader and applied randomization to it via a NOISE modifier.
I basically did what they teach in the manual. Except that in the manual, the particles forming the teapot aren’t animated.

I’m probably not understanding properly how to randomize partitions for prt_loader with Krakatoa cause my rendering looks like particle clumps. Is that how it’s supposed to look?
Thanks

#553

Check the size of your noise. Might be too large.

  • Chad
#554

Can you post images of the rendering before/after the randomization and possibly a screenshot of you Noise modifier’s settings? The approach should work with animated particles since the Noise deforms both positions and velocities (so even motion blur would work).

#555

Unfortunatly I can’t post anything. We’re behind tight security.

One thing I noticed is that I don’t see the seed of the noise modifier increasing as mentionned in the doc.

System Unit Scale is 1 unit = 1 centimeter.

Here are my noise settings:

Scale: 6
Fractal is checked
Roughness: 0
Iterations: 6

Strenght: xyz= 0.008m

Animated noise is check off.

Thanks for your help.

#556

Yeah, the noise should be tiny. Very high frequency. Try 0.01 and see if that helps.

  • Chad
#557

And you have checked the “>PRT Loader Modifiers” checkbox in the Partitiong rollout, right? When testing on a Teapot, I had to check “>Geometry Modifiers”, but if you are using a PRT Loader, you will have to use the other one. No other ideas why it wouldn’t increment the seed.

And a Scale of 0.1 or less as Chad suggested is the way to go. You don’t want just Noise, you want Chaos! :slight_smile:

#558

Strenght: xyz= 0.008m? But your in 1 unit = 1 centimeter. Isnt that 0.008 cm?

#559

No, this value is in meters shown as User Units, so it equals 0.8 generic units or 0.8 cm.

#560

Nope still no luck. It basically takes one particles and creates multiple arround it. Like little clusters of particles. :frowning:
Bummer