Animating VDB's from Embergen
surv0101
Posts: 37
I am a inexperienced Daz user and I might have jumped in over my head. I got real excited to see volumetrics and somehow ended up on Embergen's website, I think watching one of Jay's tutorials. I was trying to animate a dungeon coridor with a series of torches on the walls. I bought the Embergen package(a little pricey), but all the different presets were so cool. After watching Jay's tutorials, over and over, I was able to animate what amouted to a puff of smoke that changes shape, or in other words, a explosion without the fire. There are many presets that would work great for a torch fire, they even have an preset for a torch fire, but following everything exactly as I did for the smoke, I just cant seem to get the fire(any fire), to show up. I export the files with everything checked...flames, fuel, temperature, etc., but nothing seems to work. Am I missing something? Looking over thread after thread, I see some talk about channels, but I don't know what they are or how to change or edit them. If anyone has any idea how to animate a simple torch fire, I would be incredibly greatfull to hear how you do it. I'm pulling my hair out and I don't have much left.
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Comments
You are using Daz Studion 4.22.0.1 (or later, for future readers)?
Not to change the subject, but when I saw the title of this thread I thought you were asking if we could use "Animated VDB" files in Studio, and we can!
Alvin Bemar's ABAS Animated Shader System now grants us the ability to load actual VDB animation files! Though I own it, I haven't tried it yet. The animated shader part works great however!
Yes, although I havn't had the time to investigate all the improvements.
No you are not changing the subject, this is exactly what I am talking about. I can make a cloud or an explosion(without fire) using the files from Embergen and using the ABAS shader system, but when I try to do the same with fire, nothing showes up. A campfire or a torch for example does not show up like a cloud or a smoke stream or puff.
Have you tried doing just the fire alone?
Oh wait... in watching the video above, I recall seeing Alvin have to drag the cube up to get the actual effect into view - so try this:
In the Render pane, turn "Draw Ground" Off - just temporarily.
Zoom way the heck back. Pan/rotate around. See if it's somewhere waaaay out of view.
I'm glad I saw this thread. I want to mess with this when I get the chance.
Man, I hope you get it!
Just an update...I got it to work! I didn't know that the latest update had emisive propertied for volumes. I need to work on the coloring by tweeking some of the values(still trying to find out what every one does), but I think I am in the ballpark now. I tried to upload the animation but it says .mp4 is not allowed, but here is still of the flame. I'm excited to dig farther into this.
It's beautiful! Glad you got it working!
So did you use Rename Master like Alvin suggests or something else? Or did they come with the numbers padded already?
I actually bought a subscription to Embergen and when you export your files, you are given the option to pad them any way you want, basically the option #,##,###,####. I know in Jay's tutorial he downloads the free samples and they have to be re-padded so they all match. Not a big deal to do. I didn't know that the VDB's were not able to be emisive before the latest Daz update so I guess I was trying to make something that was not available yet. Now it is, and I'm excited to make a little animation with them. Clouds are cool, but clouds with fire are that much better, lol. I still have a lot to learn, but I am happy just to get a little flame animated. I'm not very PC savy, so I have to rely on Jay's tutorials for everything. He is amaizing and such a good instructor.
Hmm, that didn't work. I'll try a link.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/881597064
I love Jay's tutorials and presentations!
Yeah... who'd a thought they couldn't be emissive before? Huh. I mean... surfaces....
I get it though. VDB is, after all, a special kind of surface.
Thanks for sharing your experiences!
[My Goodness]! That's your result? Fantastic!!!
The very beginning of this one is my older attempts in Carrara with animated planes
Omg, I didn't pay much attention to your screen name, but you are the one that got me interested in animation in Daz Studio! I love your Rosie animations! I watched the Orc one, one day and had to buy your video series to start learning how you did it! I try some stuff, then I go back and watch the tutorials over, and over. I just love how you bring Rosie to life. It is one thing to get the technical stuff down, but its your ability to bring Rosie to life that really got me interested. All I can say is thank you for your fantastic tutorial videos and sharing your Rosie animations. They are trully an inspiration.
Thank You surv0101! I am truly flattered!
...and Honored!
Not sure if this will be helpful or not.
I'll have to check that out.
I'm still in the middle of some character animations, but when that's done I want to try this.
I've downloaded a few of the free samples at Embergen, only to find that their subscription looks like it's a one-time pay permanent membership. If that's correct, and I like working with them, that's a big Win for me.
I haven't particularly enjoyed working with EmberGen, but I also haven't spent enough time with it to really get fluent in it. X-Particles in C4D and Houdini's native particle systems work quite well. I'd really recommend everyone try Houdini out, despite the learning curve, and one of these days I'll get around to making those Houdini for DS users tutorials I've been thinking about.
With ABAS Animated Shaders System out, and that it allows us to render animated VDB, I'm amazed that none (None!!!) of the VDB I can find at Daz 3d are animations. None! They really don't give them away either!
If you ask nice enough, I might be persuaded to create animated VDBs. I've got quite a few I've created for other projects you could play around with.
Gordig, you wonderful furry bear, I really enjoy your enthusiasm toward animating and working with Houdini (which I'm really getting tempted to try... time to learn is hard to come by though) and your example videos are really fun!
Say, if you ever feel up to it, do you think I might be able to try out some of your cool animated VDB experiments/projects? Pretty please with pie on top?
I tried compressing one of my VDBs down from its original 60GB size, and only got it down to 55GB. I could throw that in my OneDrive if you want to try downloading it.
Yikes! I would be happy to try if you wanted to do that, but I totally understand if you don't want to clog up your drive. It would take quite a long time for that to download.
What is it? Is there a way to maybe put far less of the VDB files into the bin?
Sounds freaking exciting!
It's the fire from the fourth shot in this:
I've changed tactics and am moving the entire folder into my OneDrive, so you can download individual frames (the largest of which is a little under 900MB) rather than trying to download the entire archive in one shot.
Very cool! You made that? What do you use? Houdini?
That was all done with C4D and X-Particles, but this was Houdini:
Very cool!
Years ago, I did this in Carrara using Fluidos plugin for Carrara
Here you go!