Waasha Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 Hello everyone, I was looking into the "new" way of meshing FLIP fluids - the VDB meshes.. It works like a charm and I like it a lot, but I miss one very important feature in there - if I want to mesh only a part of the particle "volume", with the old Particle fluid surface I could define a bounding box and all the meshing was done just and only in this bounds and without the "border sides" of the bounding box meshed.. I try to illustrate what I have in mind on the picture - there is a FLIP Fluid sphere, meshed with the Particle Fluid Surface with the bounding box enabled. Does anyone know how to set up a similar approach with VDBs? And if the bounding box could be another object (like a sphere, or anything), that would be even more great.. A simple hipfile would be VERY appretiated - it's the best way to learn - to be able to try out different settings and play with the scene...But of course any advice/explanation would be great. Thanks a lot! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skybar Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 Something like this? vdb_mesh_crop.hipnc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waasha Posted December 7, 2013 Author Share Posted December 7, 2013 (edited) Something like this? vdb_mesh_crop.hipnc Thank You very much for a quick response, Skybar, but I have a problem with opening your scene (see the picture for the error log).. I'm using Houdini 12.5 - is that the problem (are you using H13 by any chance?) I cannot tell what you had in mind from your scene, because it's incomplete.. Could you resend a "working" (for me I mean ) example, or describe it in words, please? Thank you a lot! Edited December 7, 2013 by Waasha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waasha Posted December 7, 2013 Author Share Posted December 7, 2013 And here is the picture with the error Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skybar Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 Ah right sorry, my bad. H13 introduced a new VDB SOP for meshing particle fluids, and improved the Convert VDB SOP. This should work in 12.5. The first option is probably better, you would just need to trim the edges a bit if you need them cleaner. vdb_mesh_crop2.hipnc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waasha Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 (edited) Yeah, this one's working fine! I see what you meant, it's actually quite straightforward, thank You very much for your help, I learned a lot! The only thing that comes to my mind is - this aproach deletes the surface I don't need AFTER it's all meshed... The old aproach using Particle Fluid Surface had meshed ONLY the part I need, so it was MUCH more efficient and faster.. But again - thanks a lot! Edited December 8, 2013 by Waasha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skybar Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 Yeah, this one's working fine! I see what you meant, it's actually quite straightforward, thank You very much for your help, I learned a lot! The only thing that comes to my mind is - this aproach deletes the surface I don't need AFTER it's all meshed... The old aproach using Particle Fluid Surface had meshed ONLY the part I need, so it was MUCH more efficient and faster.. But again - thanks a lot! The left example turns the particles into a VDB, and then we crop that VDB - then we mesh it. The right example is as you say. I dont know if there is any other way, and I believe the Particle Fluid Surface SOP does something similar under the hood. Ie, it meshes the whole thing and then crops it. In H13 though, we got a third input on the Convert VDB SOP where you can connect another VDB to tell it what to mesh. That whole new workflow is quite fast, about 1min/frame for a 32mil particle flipsim I did a while ago. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magneto Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 The left example turns the particles into a VDB, and then we crop that VDB - then we mesh it. The right example is as you say. I dont know if there is any other way, and I believe the Particle Fluid Surface SOP does something similar under the hood. Ie, it meshes the whole thing and then crops it. In H13 though, we got a third input on the Convert VDB SOP where you can connect another VDB to tell it what to mesh. That whole new workflow is quite fast, about 1min/frame for a 32mil particle flipsim I did a while ago. Is that more efficient than deleting the points using a bounding box? I assume so because deleting is slower than VDB can mask it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skybar Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Is that more efficient than deleting the points using a bounding box? I assume so because deleting is slower than VDB can mask it? Yes, definitely. I put together a small test, and the workflow with VDB From Particles + VDB Smooth is actually faster than the new VDB From Particle Fluid. I didn't expect that. Am I doing something wrong? Granted the example isn't very extreme and it isn't a particle fluid.. but still. The difference in time is quite big, with negligible visual difference. (file for H13) vdb_mesh_crop_comparison.hipnc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waasha Posted December 9, 2013 Author Share Posted December 9, 2013 I dont know if there is any other way, and I believe the Particle Fluid Surface SOP does something similar under the hood. Ie, it meshes the whole thing and then crops it. That's not correct AFAIK - I tried it and when it's cropped by the bounding box, the meshing is just a fraction of the time it needs when it isn't cropped.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magneto Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Yes, definitely. I put together a small test, and the workflow with VDB From Particles + VDB Smooth is actually faster than the new VDB From Particle Fluid. I didn't expect that. Am I doing something wrong? Granted the example isn't very extreme and it isn't a particle fluid.. but still. The difference in time is quite big, with negligible visual difference. (file for H13) vdb_mesh_crop_comparison.hipnc Thanks Skybar, your comparisons are very useful. I meant deleting this way: This might not be a logical or reasonable way to do it though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skybar Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 That's not correct AFAIK - I tried it and when it's cropped by the bounding box, the meshing is just a fraction of the time it needs when it isn't cropped.. I see, cool, the more you know Thanks Skybar, your comparisons are very useful. I meant deleting this way: This might not be a logical or reasonable way to do it though I guess it depends on the scene, but you would still have to crop the mesh afterwards so that you only have your top surface - so essentially you have to delete points twice. It could make sense if you have tons of particles not contributing much to the surface, and if the time lost is regained by the speedup of turning it into a VDB. Or for other reasons, like having to minimize the diskspace. But for the purpose of only cropping the mesh I would say there are better ways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magneto Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Thanks Skybar, you know more than me, so I think your workflow is better Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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