DAZ Uber Volume Smoke texture settings

CrissieB

I'm working in DAZ 4.8.0.59 Pro (64-Bit) and rendering in Iray, and I'm trying to draw the smoke plume as a smoker exhales. The camera shot is close enough that I'll only see the first 75cm or so, so I don't need to model the whorls and eddies at the end of the plume. I only need to model the cone emerging from the character's lips.

I tried to do this with a primitive cone, applying the Iray Uber Volume Smoke texture. The result was awful. The smoke is gray, not white, and completely homogenous throughout the cone. If anything, it's denser at the edges of the cone ... whereas I need it denser at the core and very diffuse at the edges.

Here are the current settings (* means default):

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Tags (Nothing Set*)

Opacity Strength (40%)

Fantom (Off*)

Raytrace (On*)

Accept Shadows (On*)

Color (255, 255, 255 White*)

Density (0.10)

Volume Start (0.010*)

Volume End (1000*)

Step Size (1.0*)

Max Steps (201*)

Scatter (255,255,255 White*)

Strength (81.6% I think this is a default; I didn't reset it)

Detail (13.37 I think this is a default; I didn't reset it)

Contrast (14.06 I think this is a default; I didn't reset it)

UV Set (Default UVs)

Smooth (On)

Angle (89.90 I think this is the angle of my cone)

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I don't know what most of these settings do, and the only user doc I found doesn't have most of these settings, and has settings that aren't here. (I suspect the user doc was for an older version of DAZ.) I'm using Iray with no GPU, so I'm testing these setting by setting to see what they do would take days or weeks.

Does anyone know what each Uber Volume Smoke texture setting does? If so, what settings would you recommend to get: (a) white smoke; (b) in a cone; (c) denser along the centerline of the cone; (d) more diffuse at the edges of the cone?

Thanks for your help!

 

Oso3D

What you are describing isn't Iray, it's UberVolume, which is 3DL only. I'm surprised it does anything in Iray.

Volume effects in Iray are possible, but they run into the problems you describe -- you might get a soft edge, but in general they are annoying uniform.