OpenVDB / Sparse Voxels (for efficient fluid caches and more)

[trevor.adams]

(Copied from original User Voice forum)

"Maya Fluids can look really great at high resolutios. However caching this takes up a ton of disk space and I/O bandwidth. Why not use that nice efficient sparse voxels open-source OpenVDB format from DreamWorks to store them instead? You know that your competitor Houdini has already announced support for this, BTW?

Of course, bonus points for integration with SOuP / wavelet upres functions / general voxel interoperability awesomeness!"

"Another user pushing for this. Even if it is just the basic toolkit (with VP2 support) that should suffice for an initial release. Unless rewriting Maya Fluids to utilize OpenVDB under the hood is planned, just being able to convert or natively support assets from other applications would be immensely helpful. It’s high time Maya has added support.

I’ve built a copy of OpenVDB for Maya 2018 in Linux, and it’s not a simple task. On Windows I’m finding it nearly impossible with newer versions."

[Anonymous]

MAJOR +1 on this from me. I too have built it on Linux and it took a couple of days to get everything sorted. Windows was a non starter, barely compiles and doesn’t link correctly (using 4.0.2). I think there’s a reason most render engines still use 3.x...

But this really should be included in Maya by default. Even if it’s just the DreamWorks Toolkit with no additions (although I did write a few scripts to make the node graph usage a bit easier: https://gitlab.com/omento/openvdb-toolkit). It’s just a far more flexible workflow and more easily manageable. 

[stamatk]

Bifrost volume simulations already support writing to disk in OpenVDB format (and reading).

[Anonymous]

@stamatk

It does? Where is this documented? Most people are only aware of the tools written by Evgeny to work with BiFrost and OpenVDB. I’m pretty good about reading release notes and documentation and I’ve never seen OpenVDB mentioned. 

Cheers,

Mike

[stamatk]

Hi @Anonymous

Forgive me I should have been more specific.  The upcoming version of Bifrost is the one which supports the VDB workflows.  This is currently in Beta.  

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi @stamatk

Thanks for the heads up! Always appreciate the little hints about the future. By beta do you mean this is currently in development slated for a 2018 Update or in preparation for the 2019 release? Totally understand if you can’t divulge that info.

Cheers,

Mike

[ryanVQGVU]

is openVDB available in maya 2019? 

This feature was in beta a year ago, so I would hope it's available by now. 

[stamatk]

Hey guys,

The upcoming release of Bifrost Extension for Maya (which will be available for Maya 2018 and 2019) is capable of reading and writing in VDB format for volumes and points, and will contain a limited tool-set for manipulating volumes.  Please keep an eye out on the forums for official details as they are released.

Thanks!

[tj.galda]

Check out the latest Bifrost for Maya builds, it now supports this.

Thank you for submitting your ideas & making Maya even more awesome.