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The Smoke Object DOP creates an Smoke Object inside the DOP simulation. It creates a new object and attaches the subdata required for it to be a properly conforming Smoke Object.
Parameters
Properties
Two Dimensional
One of the divisions of the voxel grid will be forced to one to create a two dimensional field.
Plane
If set to two dimensional, this plane determines which axes remain unaffected.
Division Method
If non square, the specified size is divided into the given number of divisions of voxels. The sides of these voxels may not be equal, however, possibly leading to distorted simulations.
When an axis is specified, that axis is considered authoritative for determining the number of divisions. The chosen axis' size will be divided by the uniform divisions to yield the voxel size. The divisions for the other axes will then be adjusted to the closest integer multiple that fits in the required size.
Finally, the size along non-chosen axes will be changed to represent uniform voxel sizes. If the Max Axis option is chosen, the maximum sized axis is used.
When By Size is specified, the Division Size will be used to compute the number of voxels that fit in the given sized box.
Uniform Divisions
The resolution of the key axis on the voxel grid. This allows one to control the overall resolution with one parameter and still preserve uniform voxels. The Uniform Voxels option specifies which axis should be used as the reference - it is usually safest to use the maximum axis.
Divisions
The resolution of the voxel grid that will be used to calculate the smoke object. Higher resolutions allow for finer detail in both the appearance and in the resulting motion. However, doubling the divisions requires eight times the memory.
Since the substepping should be proportional to the voxel size, doubling the divisions may require double the substepping, resulting in sixteen times the simulation time.
Division Size
The explicit size of the voxels. The number of voxels will be computed by fitting an integer number of voxels of this size into the given bounds.
Size
The size of the voxel grid. The size of each voxel will be this divided by the divisions.
Center
The position in world space of the center of the voxel grid.
Closed Boundaries
The velocity field can be clamped to prevent any smoke from entering or leaving the box.
If closed boundaries is not set, the velocity on the boundary will be allowed to vary, allowing smoke to leave the box.
Creation
Creation Frame Specifies Simulation Frame
Determines if the creation frame refers to global Houdini
frames ($F) or to simulation specific frames ($SF). The
latter is affected by the offset time and scale time at the
DOP network level.
Creation Frame
The frame number on which the object will be created. The object is created only when the current frame number is equal to this parameter value. This means the DOP Network must evaluate a timestep at the specified frame, or the object will not be created.
For example, if this value is set to 3.5, the
Timestep parameter of the DOP Network must be changed to
1/(2*$FPS) to ensure the DOP Network has a timestep at frame
3.5.
Number of Objects
Instead of making a single object, you can create a number of
identical objects. You can set each object’s parameters
individually by using the $OBJID expression.
Object Name
The name for the created object. This is the name that shows up in the details view and is used to reference this particular object externally.
Note
While it is possible to have many objects with the same name, this complicates writing references, so it is recommended to use something like $OBJID in the name.
Solve On Creation Frame
For the newly created objects, this parameter controls whether or not the solver for that object should solve for the object on the timestep in which it was created.
Usually this parameter will be turned on if this node is creating objects in the middle of a simulation rather than creating objects for the initial state of the simulation.
Allow Caching
By preventing a large object from being cached, you can ensure there is enough room in the cache for the previous frames of its collision geometry.
This option should only be set when you are working with a very large sim. It is much better just to use a larger memory cache if possible.
Instancing
Creates a smoke container for every point found on either the creation frame or the current frame being processed (using Continuous).
By default, the container is created at the point’s center position. The size is defined by the point’s scale vector attribute.
If no scale attribute is found, the container will revert to the default Size.
Create Objects From Points
Enables instancing.
init_cluster data gets added to every created smoke object. The number given can be controlled through the point’s cluster attribute. This data can be generated using the 
Cluster Points operator.
If the cluster attribute isn’t specified, the point number is taken. This number is used by the 
Source Volume microsolver to fetch the correct volume information from SOPS.
Override Container Size
Use the point attribute scale to control the size of the container.
The center is defined by the point’s position. When disabled or not found, the default parameters Size and Center are available to control the container’s size and position.
Override Division Size
Use point attribute divsize to control the division size for every instanced object. If the attribute is not found, the default Division Size is used.
Number of Objects
If Create Objects From Points is turned off, the number of objects to be created on the creation frame is defined here. The default is one.
Instance Points
The node containing point geometry to instance points on.
Continuous
Creates a smoke object for every point found on every iteration. So be careful enabling this. By default, instancing occurs only once for every point found on the creation frame. When objects need to be created on the fly, use Continuous. Make sure to only have points present when an object needs to be created, such as on impact, and delete/remove the point afterward. This can be done using a timeshift operation to compare the point’s existence to the frame before.
Guides
Each of the fields that define the smoke simulation can be
visualized in a number of ways. The help for the 
Scalar Field
Visualization or 
Vector Field Visualization provides more
details about how these work.
Initial Data
Density SOP Path
This is a path to the SOP that will be used to initialize
the density subdata. It should be a volume object, such as
that generated by the 
Iso Offset SOP with the Output Type set to Fog Volume.
Scale
The per-path scale option lets you pre-scale the SOP volumes before they are applied. For example, this is very useful for boosting the initial temperature amounts.
Temperature SOP Path
The SOP to initialize the temperature data with. The
temperature field is used by the internal buoyancy forces in
the 
Smoke Solver.
Fuel SOP Path
The SOP to initialize the fuel data with. The
fuel field is used by the old combustion model in Smoke
Solver.
Velocity SOP Path
The path to the SOP that will initialize the velocity of the smoke. It should be three volume primitives which store the X, Y, and Z components of the initial velocity field.
Use Object Transform
When sampling, the density SOP determines if the relative transform between the density SOP and the DOP simulation should be taken into account.
Wind Tunnel Direction
The velocity field will be initialized to this constant external value. Furthermore, its end conditions will be set to this value. This can create a wind-tunnel type effect.
A non-zero external direction will allow smoke to leave the box, even if closed boundaries are set, as the boundary velocity will be clamped to the non-zero value.
Border Type
The behavior when the field is sampled outside of its defined box.
Constant
The initial value will be returned.
Repeat
The field will wrap, returning values from the opposite side of the field.
Streak
The value at the edge of the field closest to the sample will be returned.
Add Rest Field
Adds an extra field called "rest" which can be used to store rest positions for shaders.
Scale Rest Res
Scales the resolution of the rest field. Using a lower resolution rest field both reduces memory requirements of the rest field and also stiffens the rest field.
Velocity Sampling
Controls the sampling pattern of the velocity field.
Center
Uses faster but less accurate Gauss Seidel iterations.
Face
Use the slower but more accurate PCG method.
The other choices in the menu are only included because
they are provided by the 
Vector field DOP.
Position Data Path
The optional relative path for Position data. This will be used to
transform the fluid box, allowing for non-axis aligned fluid sims. A value
of ../Position will allow you to attach a 
Position DOP to your fluid object and thus reorient the fluid.
Fields
While every attempt is made to ensure unused fields have a minimal footprint, for some applications it may be necessary to minimize the number of extra fields created. Each field can be disabled from this list.
Note
The smoke and pyro solvers may expect these fields and stop working if they are missing.
Tip
The Heat field is manipulated by Smoke Solvers and Pyro Solvers. You can stamp the heat field with the current source mask or burn field. It then moves passively with the fluid and decays linearly over time.
It can be thought of as "Time since this voxel was added to the system", but it starts at 1 for just added and falls to 0 after a user specified number of seconds.
Slice
Slice
Which slice to use. Should be a number between 0 and the number of slices - 1.
Slice Divisions
Number of pieces to cut the volume into along each axis. The total number of pieces, or slices, created will be the product of these numbers. Ie, 2, 3, 4 will create 24 slices.
Overlap Voxels Negative, Positive
Adds a padding on the lower/upper side of the slices. The slices start by dividing space evenly, but then this overlap will cause them to overlap with their neighbors. The field exchange nodes use this overlap to determine what is communicated.
Outputs
First
The Smoke object created by this node.
Locals
ST
This value is the simulation time for which the node is being evaluated.
This value may not be equal to the current Houdini time
represented by the variable T, depending on the settings of the 
DOP
Network Offset Time and Time Scale
parameters.
This value is guaranteed to have a value of zero at the
start of a simulation, so when testing for the first timestep of a
simulation, it is best to use a test like $ST == 0 rather than
$T == 0 or $FF == 1.
SF
This value is the simulation frame (or more accurately, the simulation time step number) for which the node is being evaluated.
This value may not be equal to the current Houdini frame number
represented by the variable F, depending on the settings of the DOP
Network parameters. Instead, this value is equal to
the simulation time (ST) divided by the simulation timestep size
(TIMESTEP).
TIMESTEP
This value is the size of a simulation timestep. This value is useful to scale values that are expressed in units per second, but are applied on each timestep.
SFPS
This value is the inverse of the TIMESTEP value. It is the number of timesteps per second of simulation time.
SNOBJ
This is the number of objects in the simulation. For nodes that
create objects such as the 
Empty Object node,
this value will increase for each object that is evaluated.
A good way to guarantee unique object names is to use an expression
like object_$SNOBJ.
NOBJ
This value is the number of objects that will be evaluated by the current node during this timestep. This value will often be different from SNOBJ, as many nodes do not process all the objects in a simulation.
This value may return 0 if the node does not
process each object sequentially (such as the 
Group
DOP).
OBJ
This value is the index of the specific object being processed by the node. This value will always run from zero to NOBJ-1 in a given timestep. This value does not identify the current object within the simulation like OBJID or OBJNAME, just the object’s position in the current order of processing.
This value is useful for generating a
random number for each object, or simply splitting the objects into
two or more groups to be processed in different ways. This value
will be -1 if the node does not process objects sequentially (such
as the Group DOP).
OBJID
This is the unique object identifier for the object being processed. Every object is assigned an integer value that is unique among all objects in the simulation for all time. Even if an object is deleted, its identifier is never reused.
The object identifier can always be used to uniquely identify a given object. This makes this variable very useful in situations where each object needs to be treated differently. It can be used to produce a unique random number for each object, for example.
This value is also the best way
to look up information on an object using the dopfield expression
function. This value will be -1 if the node does not process objects
sequentially (such as the Group DOP).
ALLOBJIDS
This string contains a space separated list of the unique object identifiers for every object being processed by the current node.
ALLOBJNAMES
This string contains a space separated list of the names of every object being processed by the current node.
OBJCT
This value is the simulation time (see variable ST) at which the current object was created.
Therefore, to check if an object was created
on the current timestep, the expression $ST == $OBJCT should
always be used. This value will be zero if the node does not process
objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).
OBJCF
This value is the simulation frame (see variable SF) at which the current object was created.
This value is equivalent to using the
dopsttoframe expression on the OBJCT variable. This value will be
zero if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the
Group DOP).
OBJNAME
This is a string value containing the name of the object being processed.
Object names are not guaranteed to be unique within a simulation. However, if you name your objects carefully so that they are unique, the object name can be a much easier way to identify an object than the unique object identifier, OBJID.
The object name can
also be used to treat a number of similar objects (with the same
name) as a virtual group. If there are 20 objects named "myobject",
specifying strcmp($OBJNAME, "myobject") == 0 in the activation field
of a DOP will cause that DOP to operate only on those 20 objects. This
value will be the empty string if the node does not process objects
sequentially (such as the Group DOP).
DOPNET
This is a string value containing the full path of the current DOP Network. This value is most useful in DOP subnet digital assets where you want to know the path to the DOP Network that contains the node.
Note
Most dynamics nodes have local variables with the same names as the
node’s parameters. For example, in a Position node,
you could write the expression:
$tx + 0.1
…to make the object move 0.1 units along the X axis at each timestep.
Examples
2dfluid Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
Demonstrates exporting a 2d fluid into COPs where it can be saved to disk as a sequence of image files to then be used as texture maps, displacement maps, etc.
DelayedSmokeHandoff Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
This example shows a way to turn an RBD into smoke a certain number of frames after the RBD object has hit something.
Open CL smoke Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
Demonstrates a simple Open CL accelerated smoke sim that can be
used as a starting point for building optimized GPU accelerated
smoke sims. See the Use OpenCL parameter on the Smoke solver.
For fastest speeds, the system needs to minimize copying to and from the video card. This example demonstrates several methods for minimizing copying.
-
Turns off DOPs caching. Caching requires copying all the fields every frame. Useful if you want to scrub and inspect random fields, not if you want maximum speed.
-
Only imports density to SOPs. This means copying only one field from the GPU to CPU each frame.
-
Saves to disk in background. This gives you the best throughput.
-
Uses a plain
Smoke solver.
Displaying the simulated output in the viewport requires a GPU → CPU → GPU round trip, but this is required in general to support simulating on a card other than your display card.
RBDtoSmokeHandoff Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
This example shows a way to turn an RBD object into smoke. It uses multiple different colored smoke fields inside the same smoke object.
SourceVorticlesAndCollision Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
This example demonstrates a simple smoke system using a source, keyframed RBD collision objects, and vorticles.
rbdsmokesource Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
A ghostly tetrahedron bounces around a box, its presense shown by its continuous emission of smoke.
The following examples include this node.
FieldForceSmoke Example for Field Force dynamics node
fieldforce Example for Field Force dynamics node
HotBox Example for Gas Calculate dynamics node
DiffuseSmoke Example for Gas Diffuse dynamics node
CombinedSmoke Example for Gas Embed Fluid dynamics node
dopexample_gasnetfetchdata Example for Gas Net Fetch Data dynamics node
UpresRetime Example for Gas Up Res dynamics node
AdvectByVolume Example for POP Advect by Volumes dynamics node
BillowyTurbine Example for Pyro Solver dynamics node
2dfluid Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
DelayedSmokeHandoff Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
Open CL smoke Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
RBDtoSmokeHandoff Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
SourceVorticlesAndCollision Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
rbdsmokesource Example for Smoke Object dynamics node
TurbulentSmoke Example for Wind Force dynamics node
CurveAdvection Example for Wire Solver dynamics node
ColourAdvect Example for Fluid Source geometry node
RampParameter Example for Parameter VOP node
| See also |
