Diffeo and VDB
brainmuffin
Posts: 1,207
I'm in the process of learning smoke and flames in Blender, but I do wonder if perhaps Diffeo can convert the VDB based items in KA Rocket Launch VDB (https://www.daz3d.com/ka-rocket-launch-vdb) to something usable. Anyone have a notion?
Comments
If it uses OpenVDB then have a look here (embergen import):
I prefer a more or less khaotic approach :)
DAZ Studio doesn't support smoke and fire or particle effects in general. So apart dForce items all the rest are baked and you export them as geometry, that's nonsense to start with. I mean, in blender you can have "real" simulated smoke.
Unless I misunderstand what you're asking for.
If I'm right, Brainmuffin wants to use the newly available effects (volumetric shader available in 4.20) in Blender. And yep, a lot of people try to move over their assets from daz to blender. Which doesn't make sense in so many cases, at least for me.
Yes, I'm wanting to make an animation sequence of the rocket launching and wondered if KA Rocket Launch VDB could help with that. If it is just a prop for stills, then I'm better of doing it all in Blender.
@brainmuffin I'm going to ask you to trust me on this: After a few hours of tinkering with Embergen imported into Blender, you will appreciate Daz Studio's volumetrics as the not-so-funny joke that it is. You'll end up with results that are exactly what you wanted, not merely the closest thing that some PA thought to include.
I don't know if your rocket burns regular Kerosene, Benzene, or LOX, but the gasoline fire preset would be good for Kerosene and Benzene, but the white smoke of LOX will need some tweaking in the "density" shader.
Personally, and this is just me, I think the proper way to think is to assume that you are better off doing it all in Blender as the general assertion, until proven differently. I really, really doubt that volumetrics in Daz Studio is going to provide such an exception...
@brainmuffin Now I see the new 4.20 supports vdb with some limited features. And no animation. As for "rocket launch" by its description it uses an emissive mesh for the fire and vdb for the smoke. The emissive mesh should import into blender, though the new iray in 4.20 treats the emissive opacity differently. This also breaks any previous daz asset using emissive meshes, so most "baked effects" in the shop will not work fine anymore with 4.20.
So long story short. For now it is better to use vdb directly in blender, rather than importing it from daz.
edit. note. And, if you want your old scenes to work fine, do not update to 4.20 since it breaks both emission and top coat, other than tone mapping.