Tips and tricks on various CGI-related topics.
VDB cloud with Softimage ICE and Redshift - a step-by-step tutorial
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.
To follow the tutorial, download the compounds and connect the extracted workgroup in Softimage (File -> Plugin Manager -> Workgroups -> File -> Connect):
Create and render OpenVDB volume grids with Softimage and Redshift renderer
Note: a detailed tutorial is now available.
Since current version of Redshift requires OpenVDB-compliant voxel grids for its volume rendering, we need to somehow generate and export .vdb files from Softimage (not everybody has access to Houdini, you know).
Thanks to user Mr.Core from SI Community we have a set of ICE-compounds to do just that.
Mr.Core provided compounds to voxelize particles and geometry as well as perform actions on .vdb grids and polygonize them.
Here's an example on how to make a vdb cloud in Softimage, export it to a file and render with Redshift:
Softimage hotkeys mapping infographic
Since Autodesk officially EOL'd Softimage, XSI blogs and discussion groups have been gradually vanishing from the web which is a shame.
As a tribute to the great piece of software that Softimage is I will try to consolidate the most useful XSI-related stuff from the net.
Today we have a Softimage hotkeys infographic originally posted at XSIBase which is now non-existent. It's just too good to just perish so here are cleaned up versions in glorious PNG.