Softimage Explosia FX released!

[FXDude]

Bad news!
Roughly a week before SI RS VDBs became available,

http://blackcore.technology/softimage_efx

Availability
Sorry, this product no more available for purchase.

INSYDIUM LTD has acquired ExplosiaFX, Blackcore will continue supporting and bug fixing ExplosiaFX until 2016 end.

Quotes from RS Forum

_________________
KISSB

interestingly, explosia isn’t available for purchase anymore…


_________________
ionart

OMG! nooooo…...


_________________
Artur Woźniak

Hasn’t it been released for free?

Artur

Talk about timing!



Few quotes from RS forum

_________________
deroesi

so cinema4d only in the future?

to be honest I gave up when it came to volumes, fluids and rbd sims in softimage and simply bought houdini indie which was even cheaper than any plugin for SI. (and this stuff is pretty straight forward in H when you start with a shelf tool)

how does SI+explosia compare to H speed/mem/usability wise? any user here? (the samples look indeed awesome)

______________
owei

@deroesi
Sure..and now that indie supports 3rd party renderer, that would be a solution..if you are small enough wink

If one wants to stay with soft, emFluid is still there wink
http://www.mootzoid.com/plugin/emfluid5

Lookig forward to test VDBs for soft NOW wink Was about time and I´m happy, that it is there now..

cheers,
oli

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druitre

deroesi - 15 June 2016 05:36 PM

how does SI+explosia compare to H speed/mem/usability wise? any user here? (the samples look indeed awesome)

Bad news, about explosiaFX.

I have it and it works fantastically fast, mainly because of the preview system that gives near-final quality results in real time.

You can iterate the bananas out of your scene before ever cashing or rendering.

Downside is that MR doesn’t allow for SRT changes on your fluid box, so if you don’t have Arnold you’re stuck with just one fluid per scene.

Also more complicated setups - fluid boxes interacting with each other and dynamic obstacles, advections that would be the result of these kind of interactions, etc - are not possible to see in the preview system or not possible to achieve as far as I know.

All that being said, I’m going to try and see how far I can get with RS and VDB cashed ExplosiaFX.

Cheers, Jasper

Insydium are the makers of Xparticles for C4d
and buying Blackcore which is fine, but for the life of me, what in the world is the point of removing availability?

So Hope you had the chance to download the (fully functional) trial before then!


Nevertheless, here is a passage about working with EFX VDB cache sequence with RS.

_________________
ionart
efx_cache\SCN004_VDB\smoke#####.vdb
with this syntay.. its looking for the sequence better… sometimes i get this message:
’ WARNING : [Redshift] Failed to find volume file efx_cache\SCN004_VDB\smoke00022.vdb. Volume will be empty


_________________
Adrian

#### works.
[frame] works if the digits in your vds correspond to the frame value which is just a number with no leading zeroes

Thank you

Cheers

_________________
ionart

okay… in cases i have to build a new container…
framenumbers are replaced with: #####
working fine!
cheers

[Mr.Core]

Hi FXDude,
the latest build (and all subsequent updates till 2016 end) can be found here : http://blackcore.technology/get_softimage_efx. It is fully functional trial without license In regard of all licension-related questions please write me to olehbliznuk AT gmail DOT com
Also i have to note, i only sold explosiafx, not the entire blackcore All existing customers are still will be able to get the new solver (whatever it would be called) for free.
thanks for understanding,
Oleg

[Mr.Core]

one more note:
i am not a user of redshift but afaik they only support vdb grid from the single file with all required fields . Explosiafx has a special node for such caching ( by default all channels get saved to different vdb/native files) : EFX Export VDB
its pretty straightforward to use, and it works independently of the solver caching settings, take a look inside of it if something is unclear.

[FXDude]

Hi FXDude,
the latest build (and all subsequent updates till 2016 end) can be found here : http://blackcore.technology/get_softimage_efx. It is fully functional trial without license In regard of all licension-related questions please write me to olehbliznuk AT gmail DOT com
Also i have to note, i only sold explosiafx, not the entire blackcore All existing customers are still will be able to get the new solver (whatever it would be called) for free.
thanks for understanding,
Oleg

Oh!

I guess I was thrown off by the link not being in it's usual spot in the page.

& Congratz with your new endeavors with Insydium! (and not to mention ... for Explosia itself! )

& thanks for the info
Cheers

(& also all only good news then )

[Hirazi Blue]

Just started playing with this, but I can’t get it to render. Using the basic “Create Smoke” I’ve created a sequence of “efx1” files,
changed the “FolderPath” in the “EFX_FluidShaderGraph” to the scene stored in the "efx_cache” and the FileName to “smoke$F5”, but it still renders black…

What am I doing wrong? Probably very-RTFM-related...

edit: getting the following error:

Code: Select all

# ERROR : PHEN 0.8     33 MB error: [EFX]:[ERROR][PackedVolumeShader]: Unable to open volumeShader file! E:\Exordium\redshifttests\efx_cache\Scene\smoke00036.efx1sh

[FXDude]

Are there different cache formats?

I don't think RS looks for *.efx1sh files.


There is also RS file references with the [frame] token (without leading zeroes) or #### (with leading zeroes) to consider.

Otherwise perhaps posting on RS?

'Kissb' posted a basic test sequence

XSIMan!
with lightning fast flaming fart superpowers!

KISSB

I’ve tested it a few hours ago, mixing xsi-man with the default explosia flamethrower scene,
it was very fast.

Render times between 1-2 sec/frame, depending on how much smoke I’ve had there
( 1 area light, 720p, 1 brute force bounce, which seemed to have no effect, but it was probably my fault )


File Attachments

Comp.avi (File Size: 15135KB - Downloads: 24)

1-2 sec? was that a typo for 12 sec/frame?

12 sec would have been pretty darn fast. But 1-2 seconds (?) ...

[Hirazi Blue]

The error occurred while testing it in MR.
How would I export this to VDB?

[FXDude]

Perhaps on the EFX support site then?

https://groups.google.com/forum/?#!forum/explosiafx

[FXDude]

Hirazi? Just installed EFX and the first node is called "EFX Export VDB"

Perhaps you should start there! ;)

You can plug in the 'Active Container''s Ice tree root execute port in one of the sample scenes


EFX Sample scenes ( from here http://www.blackcore.technology/softimage_efx)

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... =drive_web

[Hirazi Blue]

I did notice the “EFX Export VDB” node,
but couldn’t figure out into which ICE Tree it has to be plugged.
There are three options: “EFX_Initialize”, “EFX_Simulate” or “EFX_DataIO”...

[FXDude]

I did notice the “EFX Export VDB” node,
but couldn’t figure out into which ICE Tree it has to be plugged.
There are three options: “EFX_Initialize”, “EFX_Simulate” or “EFX_DataIO”...

There are 3, so you could easily try (and error) all of them. ;)

[Hirazi Blue]

Thanks for that. Very helpful...

[FXDude]

It's probably the very last EFX IO (also for it name)

And in that last tree, try plugging it after all other connections as it should normally be a very last step.

And let us know how it goes!
(also for zero padding)

[FXDude]

Just to say that while the VDB export node was right there, I also make such oversights everyday, and before installing EFX, scraping the internet yeilded nothing & the process was'nt covered in the docs.

But anyhoo, hope to see some test results!

[MauricioPC]

Just saw that Insydium company, from X-Particles for Cinema 4D bought ExplosiaFX.

http://3.x-particles.com/insydium-ltd-h ... blackcore/

[druitre]

Hi Hirazi, a quick runthrough for EFX to RS volumetrics:

Make a new scene, create a EFX basic smoke or fire from the top menu.

Plug the EFX export VDB node into the top tree, after everything else, and set the output path (you can also add an ICEtree above the last one to do this, the point is you have to plug it after all the other stuff). The names in the density/heat/fuel fields are what you have to enter into the RS_Volume_Material later on: Scatter = density, Emission = heat

In my case I got no vdb exported unless I first enable in the bottom tree (EFX initialize) the solvers for Smoke, Heat and Fuel (all three of them, otherwise it wouldn't work) (The how and why of this I don't know, it's just something I noticed).

Play the animation to write the vdbs.

Then, in a new scene, create a Redshift volume, browse for the vdb-sequence, pick a file and change the framenumber to ####. You'll get something like efx_cache\campfire\efx_fluid_data_####.vdb.

Set display mode to points and play with Prune treshold to see something useful (doesn't affect render, it's just for feedback).

Apply RS volume material, enter density in the Scatter channel field (and optionally heat in the Emission channel field if you have fire). If you don't use Emission channel, make sure your light has Volume contribution set to somethging higher than zero. (make it a Redshift light while you're at it). And turn on GI in the RS rendersettings to see your fire (if you have it) cast light.

Cheers and good luck,
Jasper