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Creating Pyro sim VDB for use in Maya 2017


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Hi everyone, I'm attempting to export a pyro sim as VDB files for use in Maya 2017. I've followed a few tutorials but each time my VDBs are only 1KB each in size. Has anyone had experience with this process and could offer some advice? I'll include a copy of my hipnc if someone would like to take a look.  
 

Thanks for your time,

Kind regards,

Chris (AUS)

campfire010.hipnc

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Giving it a quick look, found some problems. 

-Set your filecache 'filemode' to write, not read. Also, when writing out a VDB, you have to change the extension at the end of your filename from .bgeo to .vdb

-Plug 'dopimportfields' node into a 'convertVDB' node to convert it from a regular volume (which is what it is when it comes out of the sim) to a VDB. Make sure you select VDB from the dropdown box. In the group section, select all the fields you want converted to VDB. Also, in the 'dopimportfields' node, untick the fields you're not going to use (if you're taking this over to Maya, then you're probably not gonna need rest, rest2 or fuel; all this useless data is just going to take up disk space unnecessarily.)

-The 'VDBvectormerge' node will turn your 3 velocity fields into 1. Just leave at default settings. You can ignore the warning it gives you. The 'primitive' node can compresses your VDB into a 16 bit format which is all you need. These two nodes aren't necessary, you can skips these two if you want, but they'll help you if you're working on a heavy sim. 

You have an OUT null at the end of this, I didn't look at your whole file but I assume you want to use your campfire sim to do something else afterwards. If so, you're probably going to want to put the OUT node after your dopimportfields and use the Houdini volume data, not VDB data- i'm just guessing here, maybe you don't, maybe you do want to use the VDB data, don't let me tell you how to live your life.

 

help_01.jpg

help_04.jpg

Edited by Goliath20
added some piccys for ya
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Goliath20,

Thank you for breaking all of that down. It really helped me out. I did originally have my filecache set to Write when I was trying to write the files. I'm guessing I changed it over to read after a few previous attempts.
The vectormerge node is a great idea! Thanks for that gem!

Much love!

Chris

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