volumetric Spheres

[Mr Mobius]

Hi guys,

How can I apply a volumetric shader to a piece of geo, (sphere) I have been playing around with fog, but I dont know how to create a bounding box for it. I know by default houdini creates its own bounding box for it, a cube, this would suggest it can be done.

I could be wrong here, but I think i3D in essence Just creates a bounding box for fog using metaballs, so can this be done using standard geo.

Idealy I would like to create a VOPS volumetric shader and apply it to a sphere and then copy the sphere to particles.

Any input would be cool.

cheers

[aurafx]

Hi ya i just got done doing what you are talking about.

Create a grid sop.

Got to POP space Source POP .. reference th grid sop in.

Then add forces. Go back to SOP space and us a POP SOP to bring your particles in to SOP space. Then... create a meta ball and use the Copy SOP to attacht them to the particle. So meta ball in on side of the copy sop and the POP SOP intot the other side.

Now how the 3d texture works is.. IF you want to make volumentric smoke... reference the meta ball network SOP. Then.. render the .i3d texture.. out. the volume that definds the meta ball surface will be the exact shape of you 3d texture file.

Then you attach your .i3d file to your fog or atmosphoere. When rendering be sure to turn off your meta ball as you only need them to create the 3d texure file.

good luck

Hope this helps.