To access neighbors, you need to calculate their positions relative to the current one. Since voxels are on a grid, you do this by offsetting the voxel coordinates. Houdini provides the volumeindex VEX function [www.sidefx.com] to help you read values from a volume at specific voxel coordinates.

fixed it. I have removed the gasdissipate microsolver from inside the pyrosolver and used the dissipation setting on the pyrosolver settings which seemed to fix it. I'll check what I did wrong on that gasdissipate solver later today.

Tanto
Impossible to know from your screenshot, please post your Solaris network, or (even better) your hip file.

Here's my hip.

Hi,

I was under the asumption that the following setup should render without any problems using Karma XPU but it only displays the volume at frame 1 in a Solaris Desktop as well as when I render it out using a render rop. The volume vanishes after frame 2. I haven't played around with Pyro in Houdini for quite some time and have only recently test rendered a fire WITH smoke which worked flawless. Now I am trying to render just flames using Karma XPU but for some reason I'm encountering the forementioned problem. What am I missing here?

Hey there Emma!

That ocean picture is super cool! There are different ways to tackle this look. Let me stick to your thought of using Heightfields. You're on the right track with heightfields and masks. Approach it like you're building the ocean layer by layer:

Deep Blue Sea: For the darker blue parts, try using a big, smooth noise pattern in your heightfield. Imagine gentle underwater hills. You can use a "Mask by Height" node to pick out these deeper areas and color them that deep blue.

Shallow Reef Fun: For the lighter, more colorful parts where the coral is, you need lots of little bumps and details! Try using a noise with smaller details (higher frequency). Try using Copernicus for texturing that amazing ocean look. Color the shallow areas with lighter blues, greens, and even some sandy colors.

Blending it nicely: Use smooth transitions! You might need to use a "Blur" node on your masks to make the colors and depths mix together gently.

Making the Coral Pop: For the actual coral shapes, you could try making some simple 3D shapes of coral. Then, use a "Scatter" node to put lots of points on the shallow parts of your heightfield (using a mask to tell it where the shallow parts are). Finally, use "Copy to Points" to put your coral shapes on those points! It all depends on the look you're after and how real you want it to look.

You could incorporate the plane and it's wake into it all but that's an entirely different topic.

Try Different Noises: Houdini has tons of different noise patterns, like "Perlin Noise" or "Voronoi Noise." Experiment to see what looks best to you!

Combine Masks: You can use more than one mask! Maybe one for the deep areas and another for the really shallow, coral parts.
Examine your reference picture closely. See how the colors change and where the details are.
It might take some playing around, but you'll get there! Keep trying different things and have fun with it! I can't wait to see the end result!😊

Hi Nick,

That's not much to go on.

It's likely one of these things:

Not adding a bright enough or interesting HDRi: You might have an HDRi, but it doesn't have bright areas to reflect.

Not connecting the HDRi to the reflection properly: You might have the HDRi in your scene, but it's not actually telling the axe's material to use it for reflections.

Something is blocking the reflections: There might be another object in the scene that's accidentally being reflected instead of the environment.

In simple terms:

Think of it like trying to see your reflection in a mirror in a dark room. You won't see much! The HDRi is like putting the mirror in a room with some lights, but if the lights are dim or the mirror isn't facing them, you still won't see good reflections.

Hopefully, this gives you a better idea of what might be going on with that axe!

I was pressed for time but Mardini is worth it ;-)

Next version of "The Vessel". I added improvements to the room geometry, added some atmospshere to the room and used different lighting.

This artwork, which for now has the working title "The Vessel", originated from a combination of ideas. I want to look how decent of an endresult I can get without using any post-compositing, Trying to commit myself to solely use Houdini. Rendered in Mantra. Yes, I have no deadlines! Isn't that great or what!

This particular render was done last week.

Konstantin Magnus
Try the min function instead:

f@density = min(z, n);

I'll give it a try!

tamte
you are trying to multiply with noised values, even if you add your ramp to the noise, its still gonna vary using the noise values
like 0.1 + 1 = 1.1
0.5 + 1 = 1.5
...

so instead you can blend the noise and density using your ramp, which will make sure that where the ramp is 1 you get clean input density and where its 0 you'll get full noise values:

f@density = lerp(basicNoise, f@density, zDensity);

Thanks for the clarification! This makes me feel like I should have just paid more attention during math classes way back at school. It's never too late though ;-).

I'm currently experimenting with volumetrics and falloff. In this specific example I made a simple falloff on the Z-axis and added basic noise. Whatever solution I come up with, I can't actually get what I want. I want to basically have no noise affecting the density when density is 1 (or higher). Is there a way to get this right?

I got inspired by an image I saw on the Internet on balancing rocks. I tried to keep it clean and simple. No post-proccesing. I'm having a hard time letting the horizon flow over into the sky.

Kate Xagoraris
Nice work! The form of the cloud looks great!What type of lighting do you have in your scene?

I used a regular Sky Light with a custom color map for the Sky Environment Map.

SiRpRoHxO
…What Div size are you using for this hero Cloud?

I used a division size of 300 and I used the basic Volume Shader Core to shade the cloud. In the end, it comes down to what look you're going for.

Hi all,

My focus was on getting a decent, photo-realistic hero cloud render. Rendered using Mantra PBR with all default render settings. I'm pleased with the result so far!

Henry,

Thanks for clearing that up!

Rob.

Hi,

Let me first say that I am somewhat technically challenged. I've been watching videos and reading up on VEX to at least get a basic understanding of VEX. To me Vex is about as mysterious as the force is for a Padawan.

Today I was experimenting with Copy SOPs and some very basic VEX. I decided I wanted to change the size of the copied geometry (a polygonal circle) along a line and then skin the geometry. Then I decided to ramp the size of the circle along the line.
It all went well up until I noticed that when I changed ramp parameters, the end point scaled up and down. At the start point (point 0) the circle behaved like I wanted it to (not change size but stay at the default size I gave it). At the end point however the circle size kept varying.

How can I get the end point scaling to behave like the start point scaling? The attached Hip file might make things more clear.

Greetz, Rob.

Having only a video to look at it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine what's going on in your simulation so I'm gonna have to give you a simple solution/answer:

upres your sim!

You most likely need to play around with the amount of particles (add more) and lower the voxel size.