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Activity Forums Maxon Cinema 4D Redshift Cloud Volume Stepping issues

  • Redshift Cloud Volume Stepping issues

    Posted by Sascha Koeth on March 2, 2023 at 5:58 pm

    Hi!

    I have some volume cloud render difficulties I could need some help for:

    Goal is getting an Earth Globe and a volumetric clouds layer that is as detailed as possible and based on a cloudanimation grayscale image-sequence. Currently built by using a 100cm sphere that gets distorted by a displacer using the cloudanimation grayscale image-sequence as the shader for the displacer. Then placing that deformed sphere in a volume builder and subtracting a non-displaced 100cm sphere. Shown here:

    https://prnt.sc/EiPsYNjXdT5r

    Now the issues I need help with:

    Currently with my Ryzen7950X+64GBRAM+RTX3080Ti I can not go below 0,2cm voxel size. Anything below that and Redshift stops to display any volumes. But I still have a lot of those circular bending-steps as shown here:

    https://prnt.sc/pHtvnEffU6hb

    Although I allready added a Fog Smooth and a Fog Curve to minimize them. They will show in animation way more and specially when the camera gets closer to the globe. And the volume builder calculation time with this setting is allready around 1min. So the question is:

    Is there any way to get more detail into the clouds, less stepping and still much faster setup times within a cienma4D+Redshift setup?

    Thanks!

    Sascha

    Sascha Koeth replied 6 months, 1 week ago 3 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • Boston Cainfra

    March 7, 2023 at 10:30 am

    Hello Sascha

    There could lots of reasons why it’s not showing below

    1. You might not have strong vram to display that

    2. Make sure your files wrote out the channel data and your using that exact same name to read it back in on the rsVolume shader

    3. It might be corrupted because it sounds like something went wrong with the VDB data grids.

    Try a new download a test file

    These should provide solutions to it or check the video tutorials below

  • Sascha Koeth

    March 7, 2023 at 2:00 pm

    Hi Bosten, thanks for your input on this!

    About the light contribution. Yes I have all lights contribute 1. And GI is set to brute force.

    About the VDB. I am not using an external VDB. Actually My setup is the same as the one in your second video. BUT. While the guy in the second video uses a rather “small” and “thick” block to put his clouds into I have a very “thin” and comparably “huge” sphere. So while at his setup he needs to go down to 1 and the voxels allready render quite a while to get to that resolution but with the “surface” I need to cover it, it is not possible to go small enough with the voxels as in “Fog” mode of the volume builder it always calculates the complete sphere and not only the thin surface I need for the global cloud layer. And Redshift volume does not work with the SDF mode of the volume builder. The SDF mode would do what I need: Only create voxels around the surface of the sphere and by that creating way less voxels meaning higher resolutions would be possible. But as long as the SDF mode is not supported by Redshift, C4D is not capable of doing things like this:

    https://youtu.be/oX28S4mvIFw

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  • Boston Cainfra

    March 7, 2023 at 2:28 pm

    Yea

    Redshift doesn’t support SDF data

    Redshift only support:

    Multibyte characters.

    Numeric types.

    Character types.

    Datetime types.

    Boolean type.

    HLLSKETCH type.

    SUPER type.

    VARBYTE type.

  • Sascha Koeth

    March 7, 2023 at 2:51 pm

    Good to know! Maybe with those types, in some kind of custom node based rig, something like this would be possible… but thats way beyond my skillset 😉

  • Boston Cainfra

    March 11, 2023 at 12:30 pm

    That means you have to scale up skills and with the level of skill you have in cinema 4d as brought me to a conclusive end that you can meet to the very standard some days

    I believe in you

  • Sascha Koeth

    March 11, 2023 at 1:23 pm

    Thank you my Master! May the force be with you, aswell!

  • Usama Aslam

    March 22, 2023 at 5:55 pm

    Hi Sascha,

    Here are a few suggestions that might help:

    Increase the resolution of your cloud animation grayscale image sequence. This will provide more detail for the displacer to work with and may result in a more detailed final render.

    Try using a different type of noise shader for the displacer. Some noise types may produce less noticeable stepping artefacts than others.

    Consider using a third-party plugin specifically designed for volumetric clouds, such as Turbulence FD or Octane Volumetric Clouds. These plugins may offer more control and options for creating detailed clouds with fewer artefacts.

    Experiment with different volume builder settings, such as changing the voxel size or adjusting the fog curve. This can have a significant impact on the final result.

    Use render passes and compositing to enhance the final image. You can render separate passes for the clouds and the Earth globe, and then composite them together in post-production. This allows you to make adjustments and corrections without having to re-render the entire scene.

  • Sascha Koeth

    March 22, 2023 at 7:58 pm

    Hi Usama,

    thanks for your input! Here are some comments on them:

    – the resolution of the image is much higher than the voxel resolution can get even close to.

    – yes. adding noise to the voxels… I tried that, but the stepping is too intense. so the noise needs to be soo intense to “break” the stepping that there is no image-texture-based-look left anymore.

    – Yes. Using Octane instead of Redshift… might be a solution, but not in a environment where Redshift is a must.

    – TurbulenceFD. I guess everything that works with simulation is way out of the scope of what I can handle within the project this is for.

    – The volumebuilder settings all boil down to beeing limitied to a 0.2 setting in voxel size and no lower setting possible even when changing the voxel count by different methods.

    I am in contact with the guys from maxon. But they did not come up with a solution yet.

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