VDB cloud with Softimage ICE and Redshift - a step-by-step tutorial

Posted in Tips and tricks on 29 June 2016

Since my first post about Softimage and OpenVDB was more of a brief overview than a tutorial, I decided to create a step-by-step guide on how to create a .vdb cloud-like grid with Softimage ICE using Mr.Core's (Oleg Bliznuk's) compounds and explain how they work on the way.

rendered vdb clouds

To follow the tutorial, download the compounds and connect the extracted workgroup in Softimage (File -> Plugin Manager -> Workgroups -> File -> Connect):

vdb compounds workgroup

Time to make some clouds!

Create a sphere and a cube in a new scene:

vdb sphere and a cube

Create an ICE-tree on the cube:

ice tree on a cube

Add the following nodes to the tree:

  • Drag a sphere polymesh reference into the tree from the Explorer
  • Connect it as a reference to the VDB Voxelize Geometry node
  • Use a Set VDB grid to create an attribute to store the grid on the object as self.vdbgrid
  • Use a VDB Display Grid Info node to actually see what results you're getting

vdb ice tree nodes

Time to store this magnificent cloud in a file:

  • Use a Get VDB grid node to reference the very same grid we stored on the object
  • Pipe it into the VDB File Grid IO node and set it to Write mode with a path to where yoju want to store the resulting .vdb file
  • To execute the write node use the already created VDB Display Grid Info node as a pass-through:

write ice vdb to file node

Create a Redshift Volume Grid primitive

redshift volume grid softimage

Apply a Redshift Volume Material to it:

redshift volume material

Create a Physical Sun and Sky for pretty lighting and enable Global Illumination in the Redshift render settings:

redshift sky and sun

Change visibility settings for the cube and the sphere to only display them in the viewport and not render:

cube sphere visibility

Point Redshift Primitive to the .vdb file you created in the previous steps:

vdb file path in redshift primitive

Set the following material settings for the Redshift Volume material (note the density reference in the scatter channel attribute field):

vdb material settings

Let's render!

vdb cloud first render

Hm. Looks strange. As if the cloud is void. Well, it is! We need to solidify it with the VDB Solidify Level Set node:

solidify level set vdb

Check it out!

solid vdb cloud sphere

Much better. Time to add some irregularity with the VDB Add Noise node:

vdb add noise

Check out the render:

vdb cloudlet render

Looks like a cloudlet! Let's keep going. Let's add an Advection node (move the grid mass as if it were, well... a cloud). Note three new nodes piped to the VDB Solidify Level Set node:

advect vdb volume

Render!

advect cloud render

Looks like a small cloud already. But it's spherical, so let's squash it with a VDB Transform node:

squash vdb cloud grid

Time to make the cloud a little bit more dense with a VDB Resample Grid node:

resample vdb grid in ice

Now if you render you'll notice the cloud lost a lot of mass:

squashed cloudlet render

To fix this:

  • Change VDB Resample Grid Exterior Width to 30
  • Add a VDB Add Noise node to add more irregularity to the resampled grid

noise and exterior width

Ok, good. Looks a bit too even and fragmented though:

even vdb cloud render

Let's fix this:

  • Change settings of the VDB Transform node
  • Change VDB Add Noise values

vdb noise setup

Render!

vdb small cloud

There you go! You now have a basic VDB cloud generator. You can go further by adding more modifiers to it or by replacing the mesh used as a generator input:

redshift in the clouds

Note: avoid making the cloud too thick because at the moment Redshift doesn't do multiple light scattering in volumes which will cause your cloud to become very dark in denser areas.