Viewport

 

 

GPU Viewport Display

By default, your simulation will not appear in the Maya viewports.  The FumeFX Preview Window is intended to give you the most accurate representation of what your simulation will look like after rendering.  However, for scene layout purposes, it is sometimes helpful to view the simulation in the viewports.  In the Viewport rollout, you can enable and adjust this viewport display.

 

Enable GPU Display - This checkbox toggles the viewport display on or off.  Next to this, there is a Display Always option.  If this checkbox is selected, FumeFX will continue displaying its data in the viewport even if the FumeFX object is not selected. Since FumeFX requires loading of output files in order to display its data, it could take some time before viewport updates.

 

Note: The GPU Viewport Display will work only with Viewport 2.0, so make sure to enable it. Due to the Maya API limitations, this option is not available in Maya 2014.

 

Stren: 0.2  Scale: 0.001

Stren: 0.5  Scale: 0.001

Stren: 1.0  Scale: 0.001

 

Hide Grid - Enable this option to hide most of the adaptive grid box from the viewport.

 

Shadows - This option has to be enabled in order for FumeFX to compute self shadows and shadows from FumeFX to objects in the scene.

 

Occlusions - This option has a great impact on the overall look inside the viewport. If enabled, it will result in correct rendering, shadows and blending of FumeFX volumetrics and scene geometry. The downside is that it can be time consuming.

 

Auto Switch Viewports - When enabled, whenever you select any perspective viewport, the GPU Viewport Display will become activate within it. Otherwise, the GPU viewport will activate only when FumeFX grid is re - selected.

 

 

VoxelData Display

In FumeFX, you are able to select which channels are exported to the output file for rendering.  This group of controls will let you mix varying intensities of these channels in the viewport display.  Of course, channels that are not present in the output file cannot be displayed in the viewport.  If a simulation is in progress, only the channels used in the simulation can be displayed.

 

Display Always - When enabled, FumeFX will display in viewport even when not selected.

 

Enable Transparent Display - If enabled, smoke and fire will use transparent shading inside the viewport.

 

Point Size - This parameter allows you to change the points size in the viewport.

 

Reduce - Use the spinner to set the level of detail; the viewport will display every nth voxel across all 3 axes.

 

Enable Gamma Correction - Enables/Disables gamma correction in the viewport.

 

Viewport Opac. Mult. - Multiplies opacity of dots drawn inside the viewport. Reduce this number to lower opacity.

 

Threshold Scale - This value acts as a multiplier for the individual threshold values of each channel.  For each channel, the corresponding threshold spinner sets the minimum value that will be displayed, in FumeFX units (Smoke, Fire and Fuel), or world units (Velocities and Forces).

 

 

Display Components

Select the Channels that you want to display.  Then, adjust the corresponding Threshold spinners to set the minimum values for display.

 

Fuel - Shows unburned Fuel.

 

Fire - Shows reacting Fuel.

 

Smoke - Shows Smoke.

 

Oxygen - Shows Oxygen the is between Min Oxygen and Max Oxygen values.

 

Velocities - Shows Velocities in the grid. In order to view velocities, they must be exported first. Interpolation between two colors is done based on the Hue.

 

Forces - Shows Forces (in case FumeFX is bound to any).

 

Turbulence - Shows Turbulence as created through the Simulation controls.

 

Temperature - For the display of temperature you can set Min. and Max. values with a linear 2 - color gradient in between. Interpolation between two colors is done based on the Hue

 

Effector - This option enables you to visualize the strength of Effector(s). It is possible to visualize them after simulation is done as Effector usually requires channels like Smoke, Temperature, etc. to be present in the grid. To be able to visualize Effector that uses Velocity channel as in input, you will have to export velocities. If you want to see the effect strength of more than one effector, you need to list all these names separated by the comma sign (for example: eff1,eff2,smokeEff,testEff).

 

Velocities and Forces Scale - The Force and Velocity vectors can be scaled for an exaggerated or disparaged display.

 

Voxel Grid - Checking this option enables you to see the dimensions of voxels used in the simulation; these dimensions can be projected to one or more sides of the grid.

 

None - No grid shown.

 

XY plane -  Shows the grid on the bottom of the FumeFX simulation.

 

Automatic -  Shows the grid on all sides that appear "inside" the current view.

 

 

Slicing

Show Slice - If you enable this checkbox, you can view the fluid values on an intersection of the grid with a specified 2D plane.  To do this, select from three axes pairs in local space (XY, YZ, or XZ); then, adjust the Position and Thickness spinners to determine the exact location shown.

 

Position - Once the Show Slice checkbox is on and a slice plane is set, use this parameter to move the slice plane along the FumeFX Grid volume to see the voxels within the grid.

 

Thickness - Once the Show Slice checkbox is on and a slice plane is set, use this parameter to determine how many cells within the volume are shown as part of the current slice.

 

Grid - Selecting this will show a voxel grid on the slice and turn off the FumeFX grid display on the sides.

 

Numerical Values:  This option will write out the contents of each voxel cell with 2 - digit precision. This can be handy when you want to see what cells within your simulation contain and the values associated with the voxels.