Introduction to Gaffer part 04 where I talk mostly about volumes. I also mention a few things about good practices while look-deving “fetchin” textures and what not.
volumes
Rendering OpenVDB in Clarisse /
Clarisse is perfectly capable of rendering volumes while maintaining it's flexible rendering options like instances or scatterers. In this particular example I'm going to render a very simple smoke simulation.
Start by creating and IBL setup. Clarisse allows you to do it with just one click.
Using a couple of matte and chrome spheres will help to establish the desired lighting situation.
To import the volume simulation just go to import -> volume.
Clarisse will show you a basic representation of the volume in the viewport. Always real time.
To improve the visual representation of the volume in viewport just click on Progressive Rendering. Lighting will also affect the volume in the viweport.
Volumes are treated pretty much like geometry in Clarisse. You can render volumes with standard shaders if you wish.
The ideal situation of course it would be using volume shaders for volume simulations.
In the material editor I'm about to use an utility -> extract property node to read any embedded property in the simulation. In this case I'm reading the temperature.
Finally I drive the temperature color with a gradient map.
If you get a lof of noise in your renders, don't forget to increase the volume sampling of your lighting sources.
Final render.