Mist - Maxwell Render

Owned by thomas (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 24 Aug, 2016
2 min read

RealFlow's integrated Maxwell Render engine is capable of rendering volumetric data from mist simulations. A few notes:

  • Adjustments on the "Density curve" can be viewed in realtime when the → "Maxwell Interactive" panel is active.
  • Density-based OpenVDB files from other sources can be be loaded via RealFlow's Graphs engine and then rendered.
  • Motion blur and output channels (e.g. Alpha, Velocity, etc.) are currently not supported.

 

 

Renderable

There are three options:

  • “Same as display”. If the node is visible in the viewport then it will be rendered.
  • “Yes”. The node will appear in the preview regardless of its viewport visibility.
  • “No” hides the node regardless of its viewport visibility.
Material

Here are the menu's entries:

  • “From Node”. Maxwell will take the colour from the “Node” panel's “Color” parameter.
  • “From File” lets you load an external MXM material file.
Material File

This field is only available when “Material” is set to “From File”. With a click into the empty field you can load an appropriate MXM file.

Density multiplier

All density values of the mist domain will be multiplied with the adjusted value.

Density curve

Here it is possible to draw a curve in order to control the mist cloud's density. The horizontal X axis represents the original densities from 0.0 to 1.0. The corresponding vertical Y values act as multipliers. An example:

  • The original density is 0.5 and the curve's corresponding Y factor is 0.3
  • The final density will then be 0.5 * 0.3 = 0.15
  • All curve values will also be multiplied with the "Density multiplier" parameter.
  • The maximum resulting density is 1.0 – higher values will be clipped.

 

 

Drawing and shaping curves is easy:

  • Add new control points with a double click.
  • Select control points with a click or draw a rectangle around them.
  • Drag points with the mouse – the corresponding X and Y values are displayed below.
  • When the point's type is “Bezier” it is possible to drag the tangent handles.
  • Bezier tangents can be manipulated individually by deselecting “Unify tangents”.
  • Delete control points with right-click > Remove control point.