This page provides information on the Smoke color rollout the Rendering Volumetric Options dialog.
Page Contents
Overview
This roll-out controls the Diffuse color of the Volumetric Shader. In general, the diffuse color can be a uniform color, a mixture of colors dragged by the simulation (RGB), a function of any physical channel, or sampled from a texture.
The diffuse color needs external light to become visible. When using a 3ds Max omni light, it should have Shadows and Atmosphere Shadows enabled, as well as Ray Traced Shadows (if rendering with the default Scanline renderer) or VRayShadow (if rendering with V-Ray). V-Ray lights will work with their default settings.
Parameters
Based on | darg – The source channel used to determine the smoke color. By default, it is a uniform simple color set by the Constant color option. The other options require the corresponding channel to be enabled from the FireSmoke Output rollout before the simulation is run.
- Disabled
- Temperature
- Smoke
- Speed
- Texture
- Constant color
- RGB
- Fuel
? – Opens the help documents.
Texture | dtxt – If Based on is set to Texture, this slot specifies which texture to use.
Modulate | mod_d – When Based on is not set to Texture, the color is multiplied by the texture in the Texture slot.
Reset to Defaults – Resets the settings to their default values.
Constant color | simple_color – If Based on is set to Constant color , this color is used.
Scattering | noscatter – Controls how the light rays are scattered inside the volume.
Ray-traced (GI only) – Enables physically accurate scattering of light rays. This mode produces the most realistic results but it's the slowest to render. It requires V-Ray with enabled Global Illumination, otherwise the rendered result would be the same as if the option is Disabled. The Master Multiplier does not affect the rendering in this mode.
Disabled – Disables scattering. The Master Multiplier value can be used to correct the brightness because without light scattering the volume would generally render darker.
Approximate – Uses an approximate formula which is faster than Ray-Traced scattering and produces good looking results. Brighter areas of the volume would transfer light farther than dark areas. This option is not supported by the Volumetric Geometry render mode.
Approximate+Shadows – Same as Approximate, but also affects the strength of shadows over the scene geometry. This option is not supported by the Volumetric Geometry render mode.
Use Light Cache | lightcache – Enables light caching for each voxel of the grid, which speeds up bucket rendering considerably when the voxel size of the grid is significantly larger than the rendering pixel. If the grid resolution is large enough compared to the rendering resolution, disabling this option will speed up rendering.
- This option refers to the internal Phoenix FD Light Cache, which is not related to the V-Ray Light Cache.
- When using V-Ray Progressive Rendering, this option might slow down rendering startup or the overall render speed.
- This feature might produce artifacts when the smoke is very dense.
- This feature might produce artifacts when objects cast shadows through the smoke.
- Rendering multiple copies or instances of the simulator node with this option turned on might lead to slow-downs.
- When rendering in Volumetric Geometry mode, for any of these Render Elements: [ Shadows ], [ Raw Shadows ], [ Global Illumination ], [ Raw Global Illumination ] , the Phoenix FD Light Cache will require additional memory to produce the correct result. Please be aware that these Render Elements (and most other V-Ray Render Elements except for [ Atmosphere ] and [ Self-Illumination ] ) do not work in Volumetric mode.
Light Cache Speedup | subred – [V-Ray specific] [Valid only when Use Light cache is enabled] The higher this option is set, the faster the rendering will be, but the lower the quality of the Phoenix Light Cache. You can increase this parameter and gain render speed as long as you don't start getting dark cubic grid artifacts on the smoke.
Master Multiplier | difmul – A general multiplier for the diffuse color. It is ignored when the Scattering mode is set to Ray-traced (GI only).
Own Light Scatter Mult | transfown – [Valid only when Scattering is set to Approximate or Approximate+Shadows] This multiplier determines how far the light travels through the volumetric, based on the distance from the emissive light itself.
External Light Scatter Mult | transfext – [Valid only when Scattering is set to Approximate or Approximate+Shadows ] This multiplier determines how far the light from all external light sources travels through the volumetric. Both Scatter Boost parameters don't alter the visual density of the smoke to the camera, and only apply to the illumination.
Shadow Strength | shad_strength – A multiplier for the opacity of the shadow that the volumetric casts on other objects.
Color gradient | dcolorx_t, dcolory_t, dcolorx_s, dcolory_s, dcolorx_v, dcolory_v, dcolorx_f, dcolory_f – by default, this parameter will be inactive when using the Based on: Constant Color setting for photorealistic smoke. If Based on is set to a channel of the simulator such as smoke, the gradient controls how the smoke color is driven by this channel's value. The selected channel's data range will be highlighted in light blue.
You can use the following controls in the color gradient:
Double click – Creates a new point or changes an existing one.
Left button drag over a point – Moves the point. If several points were selected beforehand, they will move the same amount.
Left button drag over several points – Selects several points.
Middle button drag over the background – Drags the visible area.
Mouse wheel – Zooms in/out.
Right click – Displays a drop-down menu where you can add a point, edit or delete a selected point, and fit the entire gradient into the view. If multiple points are selected, they can be edited simultaneously.