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HHyyppeerrVVooxxeellss2.0LightWave 3D Plug-in

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Credits

Programming Gregory Duquesne

Additional Programming Arnie Cachelin, Matt Craig, andRyan Mapes

Blue Skies LScript Art Howe

Testing Jarrod Davis, Art Howe, BradPeebler, and Brian Freisinger

Tutorials Brad Peebler and Gregory Duquesne

Documentation Douglas J. Nakakihara

Special thanks to Ken Musgrave

1 HyperVoxels 2.0 FAQ

2 Quick Start

Getting Jump-started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2

HyperVoxel Volumetrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4

Blending HyperVoxel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6

Casting Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7

3 HyperVoxels Reference

The HyperVoxels Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2

HyperVoxels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2

Global Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2

Preview Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3

Object Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4

Blending Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6

Object Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6

HyperTexture Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7

Surface Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9

Volumetric Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.10

Envelope and Parameter Controllers . . . . . . . . . . 3.12

HyperVoxel_Particle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.18

HyperVoxel_Shader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.18

HyperVoxel_Doubler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.18

4 Tutorials

Billowing Ball of Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2

The Big Explosion (YAET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7

Fiery Gas Planet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9

Crater Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.11

5 Tips and Tricks

Blue Skies LScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3

Table of Contents

HyperVoxels 2.01.1

cchhaapptteerr1HyperVoxels 2.0 FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are several questions you may have about HyperVoxels and the answers to them. This should help you gain a betterunderstanding of how the plug-in operates.

WHAT IS HYPERVOXELS?

With ordinary polygonal objects, realistic effects like liquids, smoke, clouds, and fire are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.HyperVoxels brings these capabilities to LightWave 3D. It simplifies the creation of volumetric rendering effects such as photorealistic clouds, flames, explosions, dust, nebulas, contrails, fluids, smoke, ash, pyroclastics, Jell-O, electromicroscopic images, rustedmaterials, detailed solid and rocky surfaces, and much, much more. Additionally, with HyperVoxels integration with LightWave 3D'sraytracing engine, all of these effects are represented in shadows, reflections, refraction, depth of field and motion blur as well as inthe Cel shader.

HyperVoxel objects have computed mass, as opposed to modeled mass of normal LightWave objects. This opens the door to effects anorder of magnitude greater in complexity than previously possible. Dynamic transformations like merging and slicing objects are nowpossible without the need to model multiple geometries. A common example of this is the actions of the substance inside lava lamps.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SURFACE AND VOLUMETRIC HYPERVOXELS?

HyperVoxel objects can either be surface-based or volumetric-based. Surface-based HyperVoxels (introduced in version 1) are similarto standard LightWave objects. They have a defined surface, but no interior. If you go inside such an object, there is nothing.Volumetric-based HyperVoxel objects (new in version 2), on the other hand, have computed volume. You would use this option tocreate effects like gases, flames, clouds, explosions, or even short hair or fur.

DOES MY HYPERVOXELS OBJECT HAVE TO BE POINTS ONLY ?

No, however, it usually is points-only or a Null object. The reason is that polygons may be visible after rendering and usually this isnot desired. However, having polygons may make it easier to see in Layout. In such case, you can set the object’s dissolve to 100percent to keep it from rendering.

HOW DO YOU SURFACE HYPERVOXEL OBJECTS?

Since there is no actual geometry for HyperVoxel objects, how they look is entirely handled through the plug-in. Moreover,HyperVoxel textures are three-dimensional algorithmic textures, unlike normal surface bump maps which only appear to have depth.This means you can actually get very close to the surface and they will look 3D no matter what angle you view them at. HyperVoxelsfeature sub-pixel displacement, which results in surface details no matter how close you get.

HOW DO YOU POSITION AND MOVE HYPERVOXEL OBJECTS?

The position of HyperVoxels can be determined using a Null object or an object’s points. Moving the object will move theHyperVoxel object. Changing the position of an object’s internal points will also change the look of a HyperVoxel object. AHyperVoxel will appear around each point and their proximity to each other affect how the object appears on the whole.

IS A PARTICLE ANIMATION SYSTEM REQUIRED ?

Absolutely not. Many spectacular effects can be achieve using Null objects or points animated using conventional means. However, toachieve realistic dynamic liquid effects, you will probably need a particle system. HyperVoxels currently supports the RealFlow andParticleStorm particle systems.

1.2 C H A P T E R O N E : HyperVoxels 2.0 FAQ

WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF EACH HYPERVOXELS PLUG-IN?

HyperVoxels consists of four plug-ins which work as a team. HyperVoxels is the main plug-in and is accessed as a pixel filter.HyperVoxels_Doubler, also a pixel filter, improves rendering time by interpolating the results of the main plug-in.HyperVoxels_Particles is a displacement map plug-in that provides information about objects to the main plug-in.HyperVoxels_Shader can be applied to object surfaces to have them catch shadows from HyperVoxels, as well as reflect and refractthem.

WHAT IS A GRADIENT?

Basically, a gradient allows you to vary a setting (color, luminosity, etc.) based on some other factor (time, height of surface bumps,distance to another object, etc.). For example, if the HyperVoxel surface is bumpy, colors can be different based on the height of thesurface being colored.

In a very small sense, it is like a motion graph where you can vary, say, the X position over time. However, instead of being limited toonly time, gradients can vary a setting over other things, like angle of incidence and height of surface bumps.

WHAT ARE THE BASIC STEPS IN USING HYPERVOXELS?

1. Add an object to Layout2. Add the HyperVoxel_Particles Object Displacement Map plug-in to the object3. Add the HyperVoxel Pixel Filter plug-in4. Add the HyperVoxel_Doubler plug-in in the next Pixel Filter slot5. Open the HyperVoxel Pixel Filter plug-in Options panel

DOES HYPERVOXELS REPLACE STEAMER?

For many effects, like (ironically) steam and gases, you will want to use HyperVoxels instead of Steamer. However, you will still wantto use Steamer for things like volumetric lights, true 3D fog, and very wispy smoke.

SUMMARY OF NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 2

• Graphical presets gallery provides quick starting point• Support for using Null objects• Ability to use particles as point lights• 50% more hypertextures• New illumination models• Precise control over render quality• Dynamic adaptive fractal frequency control• Volumetric rendering engine option with definable surface attributes and volumetric shadow option• New input parameters for gradients• Four new fractal noise engines• Real-time 2D previews of volumetric textures• Special volumetric animated effects• World and local coordinates for fractal noise• Noise may be parented to an object• Selectable illumination light sources• Ability to zoom in the preview window• Different HyperVoxel objects may interact with one another, resulting in blending or repulsion• Option to have hypertextures affect only the bump channel of the hypervoxel surface instead of affecting the entire surface

HyperVoxels 2.01.3

1.4 C H A P T E R O N E : HyperVoxels 2.0 FAQ

cchhaapptteerr2Quick Start

Getting Jump-started

This chapter will get you jumped-started with HyperVoxels. It contains several tutorials that go through the basics of how the plug-inworks. More complex tutorials are included later in the manual, as well as, detailed explanations of all functions. However, first, here’sa brief overview of how the panel is laid out.

HyperVoxel Basics

This exercise will give you a quick hands-on feel on how to use HyperVoxels.

1. Add a Null object to an empty Scene in Layout.

2. Add the HyperVoxel_Particles displacement map plug-in (Objects panel).

This plug-in allows the main (pixel filter) plug-in to know all about the object.

3. In the Effects panel, add the HyperVoxels plug-in and the HyperVoxels_Doubler plug-in in the slot immediately following.

Note that the HyperVoxels_Doublerplug-in is not absolutely required. It’s sole purpose is to allow you to render HyperVoxels ata lower-resolution to save time. However, it must follow the main plug-in to operate properly.

4. Open the HyperVoxel Options panel.

2.2 C H A P T E R T W O : Quick Start

GENERAL GLOBAL OPTIONS

OBJECT ACTIVATION This is where you identify what objects inLayout are to be used with HyperVoxels.

SIZE AND HYPERTEXTURES This is where you set the size ofthe HyperVoxel volume as well as the surface texture.

MULTI-OBJECT INTERACTION Determines how particles andmultiple HyperVoxel objects interact.

PREVIEW AREA This is where you preview yourHyperVoxel settings.

SURFACE OR VOLUMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS This is whereyou define the surface or volumetric attributes.

5. Activate Enable HyperVoxels .

6. Select the Null object from the Object pop-up menu and then click the Activate button.

A requester should appear that lets you know that the object was successfully activated. If not, make sure theHyperVoxel_Particlesdisplacement map plug-in was added for the Null.

7. Click the Refresh button and you should see a small red ball render in the preview window.

8. Change the Particle Size to 2 and refresh the preview.

The red ball should be larger now.

9. Click on the HyperTexture Options tab.

This is where you define the surface texture—essentially the terrain of the surface.

10. Choose Rocky2 from the HyperTexture pop-up menu, refresh the preview, and yell, “Adriane I did it!”.

You should see something that looks remarkably like a piece of hard candy. Mmmmmm.

11. Go ahead and play with the Frequencies , Scale , and Amplitude settings and watch the HyperVoxel change. (Note: You must refresh thepreview to see the change. Also, to abort the refresh, press the CTRL key.)

Similar to standard algorhythmic textures like Fractal Noise, these settings alter the complexity of the surface.

HintYou can just press the F9 key to refresh the preview.

12. From the Affect pop-up menu, choose Bump only and refresh the preview.

HyperVoxels 2.02.3

Notice that along the outside, the ball is now smooth and round. Only the interior has the texture. This is typical of normalbump maps. They are only illusions of texture. The normal HyperVoxels Affect mode of Geometry, actually adds real pits andvalleys.

Why use Bump only? Well, it renders faster and if you aren’t going to have the camera real close to the object, you may be ableto get away with it.

13. Switch back to the Geometry Affect mode.

The Surface - Basictab should be selected by default. All of the settings should be familiar to you since they are identical inname and operation to the normal LightWave surface settings. Try changing the various values and see their effect on thepreview (after refreshing of course).

The P buttons—covered later in the manual—are somewhat similar in concept to standard LightWave envelopes. However, theyallow you to vary the setting (Luminosity, Diffussion, etc.) based on things other than time, like the distance to another object orthe height of a hypertexture bump.

14. Click on the Surface - Adv tab.

The options on this tab allow you to further change how a surface appears. These are discussed elsewhere in the manual, as theyare advanced topics.

HyperVoxel Volumetrics

This exercise will give you a flavor of some of the volumetric features

1. Set up a basic Null object HyperVoxels Scene:• Add a Null object• Add the HyperVoxel_Particles displacement map plug-in (Objects panel)• In the Effects panel, add the HyperVoxels and HyperVoxels_Doubler plug-ins• Activate Enable HyperVoxels (HyperVoxel Options panel)• Select the Null object from the Object pop-up menu and then click the Activate button

2. Refresh the preview.

You should get a plain red ball.


3. Click the Presets button and select Plasma Nebula (second row, far-right) and then the OK button to apply these settings to currently activeHyperVoxel object (i.e., our Null).

Notice that the Volumetrics Only from the Render Selection pop-up menu is already selected for you.

4. Change the Preview pop-up menu to Particle .

This setting is used to give a view of one particle in a HyperVoxel object. Since our Null is only a single particle, this is a quickway to get a close-up view.


Ooh! You should now see your plasma nebula. This object is totally three dimensional. You could fly the camera into it andcontinue to see all of the details. At this point, none of the surface-related settings will affect how the HyperVoxel looks.

6. Click on the Volumetric - Basic tab.

The options on this tab control the basic look of your volumetric HyperVoxel. You can adjust the color, opacity and density. Thelower half of the tab controls the “fractal look” of the object. Try playing with the settings to see their effects.

7. Click on the Volumetric - Adv tab.

As you might expect, this tab contains more advanced options. Included are options to define how the HyperVoxel object is lit,as well as self-shadow options.

HyperVoxels 2.02.5

NoteBecause HyperVoxel objects do not actually exist (in the LightWave sense that is), for regular objects to catch a shadows from HyperVoxels,you must add the HyperVoxels_shader plug-in to each surface that needs to receive a HV shadow.

Blending HyperVoxel Objects

This exercise shows how different HyperVoxel objects can interact with one another.

1. Set up a basic Null object HyperVoxels Scene:• Add a Null object• Add the HyperVoxel_Particles displacement map plug-in (Objects panel)• In the Effects panel, add the HyperVoxels and HyperVoxels_Doubler plug-ins• Activate Enable HyperVoxels (HyperVoxel Options panel)• Select the Null object from the Object pop-up menu and then click the Activate button.

2. Close the HyperVoxels panel and clone the Null two times (Objects panel).

This saves you from having to add the displacement map plug-in multiple times and activating the objects in HyperVoxelsindividually.

3. Move and keyframe Null (2) to Y = -1m and Null (3) to Y = -2m.

4. Rotate the camera so that you can see all three Nulls.

5. Go back to the HyperVoxels panel, select Null (2) and make it’s Surface Color (Surface- Basic tab) “pickle” green.

HintYou can just press the F5 key to immediately bring up the last used plug-in panel.

6. Go to the HyperTexture Options tab and select Sine from the HyperTexture pop-up menu. Also set: Scale to 4.3, Amplitude to 22, Gain to73, and Bias to -67.

Note how the cross-section graph changes as you adjust these settings.


You should see a small sphere appear with a pickle-like surface.

8. Select Null (3), give it a gray Surface Color and use the Pebbles HyperTexture. Do a preview to see it.


9. Now, increase the size of each object to 1.1.

10. Change the Preview Mode to Scene and refresh the preview window.

You should see all three objects now, but it isn’t very interesting (yet).

11. Using the Objects interactions mode pop-up menu, change it to Blend for all three objects.

All objects should now blend together, including their HyperTexture.

12. Try changing the Null (2)’s Objects interaction modeto the other settings and observe their effects.

Casting Shadows

To have HyperVoxel objects cast shadows on regular objects, the shadow-receiving object must have the HyperVoxels_shader

1. In Modeler, create a large flat box using Low: X = -5 m, Y = -2.5 m, and Z = -5 m; High: X = 5 m, Y = -2.5 m, and Z = 5 m. Make sure thepolygon is facing up.

2. Load it into the Scene with the three Nulls created in the previously exercise.

3. Go to the surface Default (this will be the ground) and add the HyperVoxels_Shader plug-in.

Adding this plug-in to the surface allows it to “catch” shadows from HyperVoxel objects.

4. Open the HyperVoxel_shader’s options panel and activate the Receive HyperVoxels shadows option.

5. Do a quick render.

HyperVoxels 2.02.7

You should see the HyperVoxel object casting a shadow on the ground object.

Well, that’s the basics of HyperVoxels. You now know how to add HyperVoxels to an object and set up surface or volumetricproperties. You also learned how to make separate HyperVoxel objects interact with one another, as well as have them cast shadows onnormal LightWave objects. Everything else is pretty much just tweaking the basics you’ve just learned.


HyperVoxels 2.03.1

cchhaapptteerr3HyperVoxels Reference

The HyperVoxels Family

HyperVoxels consists of four separate plug-in types: the main and doubler pixel filter plug-ins, the object displacement map plug-in,and the surface shader plug-in. They are implemented in this way because each has a different function within LightWave. The mainplug-in,HyperVoxels, is where all of the action takes place. However, to operate properly, it needs information about objects. That iswhere HyperVoxels_Particlescomes in and why it is necessary to load it for each object that HyperVoxels is to be applied to.

HyperVoxels_doubler’s job is to interpolate the results of the main plug-in and reduce rendering time. HyperVoxels_Shadercan beapplied to object surfaces to have them catch shadows from HyperVoxels, as well as reflect and refract them.

HyperVoxels (Pixel Filter plug-in)

This is the main HyperVoxels plug-in.

Global Controls

Presetsbrings up a gallery of preset settings for HyperVoxels. You can select one by clicking on the thumbnail image and then theOK button. This only sets the parameters. You will still have to provide an object with the HYPERVOXELS_PARTICLES DisplacementMap plug-in, etc.

NoteThis feature requires the DGALLERY.P plug-in be loaded. It is in the PLUGINS\COMMON folder.

Enable HyperVoxelsactivates the plug-in. This allows you to turn it off without losing any settings.

Render 1/2 Resmakes the plug-in render in half resolution and then interpolates to create the full-resolution effect. This willsubstantially increase rendering speed, at the cost of some accuracy. This requires that the HyperVoxels_doublerpixel filter plug-in beloaded after the HyperVoxelsplug-in.

No Antialiasing keeps HyperVoxels from calculating during LightWave’s antialiasing passes. This will improve render speeds at theexpense of image quality, motion blur and depth of field.

3.2 C H A P T E R T H R E E : Reference

NoteIf the No Antialiasing option is active and you are also using some level of LightWave’s normal antialiasing, you will still get some level ofsmoothing along the edges of HyperVoxel objects. This is not, however, true antialiasing.

The Alpha Output pop-up menu lets you affect LightWave’s alpha channel. Nonewill not affect the alpha channel at all. Add toAlpha Channel simply adds the HyperVoxels data to the alpha channel along with the LightWave generated alpha channel. ReplaceAlpha Channel will result in an alpha channel that only contains data for the HyperVoxels alpha—this can be used to create a maskfor the HyperVoxels effect only.

Load/Save Object Settingsallows you to retrieve and store HyperVoxels setting files. This can be used to create a library ofattributes.

NoteThese settings are for the objects only and do not include global controls.

The Copy/Paste Object Settingsbuttons allow you to retrieve and store HyperVoxels parameters from a RAM buffer (without savingto disk).

Preview Controls

The Channel Displaypop up menu allows you to view any of the following channels; Render, RGB, Alpha, and Z Buffer . Renderis the combination of any previously rendered LightWave material with the HyperVoxels surfaces mixed in. The RGB option showsonly what was rendered directly inside Layout in its color representation. Alpha displays any alpha channel for a previously renderedframe inside of Layout—this will only show the alpha for geometry and not the HyperVoxels effect. Z-Buffer displays the depthinformation for the previously rendered LightWave image.

NoteThe last three options will not display any result until the user has rendered a frame from Layout.

The Load/Save Previewbuttons allow the user to retrieve and store preview images, as a reference for certain settings. For example,you could make a library of settings by saving the Object settings and then save an image to match each saved parameter to use as acatalog. These previews can then be loaded for display and selection.

The Use Zbuffer option will allow HyperVoxels to display rendered LightWave material in the preview window. Draft Mode rendershalf-resolution in the preview window.

The Preview pop-up menu determines what is rendered in the preview window and has three options. Object will only show thecurrently selected HyperVoxel object. Scenewill show all active HyperVoxels objects. Particle will only show one particle for thecurrently selected HyperVoxel object.

HyperVoxels 2.03.3

Click the Refreshbutton to preview the HyperVoxels effect. To abort the preview rendering, press the CTRL key.

ZOOMING IN

You can zoom in on any area in the preview window by dragging out a bounding box with your mouse—the box’s center will be atthe initial dragging point. When you release the mouse button, the bounded area will fill the screen.

NoteWhen you first zoom in on an area, the result will be pixelated. Refreshing the preview will re-render at the higher magnification.

The zooming state may be reset by clicking the Reset Zoombutton and you must reset the zoom before you zoom in again.

Object Controls

The Object pop up menu lists all of the objects in the Scene. Clicking the Activate button identifies the object selected on the Objectpop-up menu as a HyperVoxel object. Clicking the Deactivatebutton will deactivate the object whose name appears on the Objectpop-up menu. The Previous Activeand Next Active will cycle you through all activated objects.

Dissolveallows you to individually set an opacity value for each active HyperVoxel object: 0% is totally opaque and 100% iscompletely transparent.

The On/Off buttons allow you to independently temporarily deactivate HyperVoxels for the selected object without losing anysettings.

PARTICLE SERVER OPTIONS

The Server button displays the server panel for the selected object. Here you can choose different particle controllers. A server is add-on software which provides particle information on a per frame basis. Currently, HyperVoxels supports ParticleStormand RealFlow.

Selecting one of these particle controllers as the Data Serverwill let the HyperVoxels pixel filter plug-in extract selected information,such as Color, Size, Speed, Alpha Channel, Pressure, and Force. These attributes can be used to change parameters in theHyperVoxels surface creation and texturing.


This could allow for HyperVoxels color to support a ParticleStorm color path, fade a HyperVoxels surface out based on theParticleStorm death rate, or even change HyperVoxels particle size based on the speed of a RealFlow particle. Many great effects canbe created with this tool.

For ParticleStorm, selecting Color will force particles to get their color fixed by ParticleStorm, no matter what the color setting is inthe HyperVoxels panel. Selecting Alpha Channel will dissolve the particles depending on the alpha value, as this is usually used todissolve particles when they “die”. For example, particles with an alpha value of 255 would be dissolved 100 percent. Using Sizewillresize the particles using the incoming value from ParticleStorm.

NoteParticle Store Lite will support Alpha Channel and Color. Other parameters require a full version of Particle Store.

For RealFlow, Size, Age, Pressure, and Isolation are provided to certain gradients as input parameters, then the user may use them inorder to change a parameter (color, diffuse, etc.). The items available in the Input Parameter pop-up menu will vary. Note that if youuse the RealFlow Size parameter, the RealFlow particle size value overrides any HyperVoxels Particle Size settings. Any effects fromSize Variation and Variation Scale will be applied, however. Also, when using Pressure, the values are normalized between 0 (lowest)and 1 (highest).

Size Parameters

The Absolute Sizing Mode sets a specific radius for each particle (Particle Size) in the default unit (usually meters). The Relativemode computes an average particle size based on the shape of the entire object. In this mode, a Particle Sizeof 1 means the exactequal to an internally calculated “average” size—HyperVoxels surfaces will not intersect at this setting. A value of 2 would meantwice the average and .5 would be half. A new value is dynamically computed for every frame, thus if the particles are going to move,the computed particle size will likely change over time.

HintFor fastest rendering, always try to use the fewest number of particles and the smallest Particle Size that achieves acceptable results.

Switching from Relative to Absolute will display the last calculated particle size, so this is a handy way to find a starting point whenusing the Absolute mode.

HintThe Relative mode simplifies a lot of the work and should be the preferred mode for less advanced users and when setting up HyperVoxelsettings. Rendering time is related to how much the particles intersect each other—the more you have intersections, the longer the renderingtime. As such, begin with the Relative mode, and tweak it until you achieve the desired results. Then, (in most instances) switch to theAbsolute mode for your final rendering.

NoteIf you will be animating your objects, always use the Absolute mode for your final rendering. Otherwise, the Particle Size will be re-evaluatedfor each frame with unpredictable results.

Size Variation sets the maximum percent that the particle size can vary. For example, a particle size of 1 with a variation of 100% canbe as small as 1 and as large as 2. Using a variation of 50% would yield particles ranging from 1 to 1.5 in size. Use this to createrandom disturbances in the surface.

HyperVoxels 2.03.5

Size Variation Scalerandomly varies the Size Variation as particles move. Think of this as a large invisible 3D field. Using a value of10 would allow a particle to vary from its original size to the Size Varianceover 10 meters as it moves through this field. A setting of1 would vary the size much more quickly.

NoteChanging either size variation setting from 1 is only useful when the particles are animated. Thus, you will not see much difference in thepreview window.

Blending Mode

The Blending Modedetermines how particles will blend inside an object. The difference between the two is that Metaballs2 tends toresult in larger areas of intersection. Metaballs1 creates a tighter blending radius so particles (even in the same object) must be closertogether before they merge. Metaballs2 creates a looser blending region so that particles “reach out” sooner.

Object Interaction

Separate HyperVoxel items can interact with one another. You can individually set how the selected object interacts with otherHyperVoxel objects.

NoteMake sure that all items you want to interact have a Object Interaction mode activated. Also, you will need to use the Scene Preview modewhen doing test renders to see the effects.

Interacting objects shown separately

No Interaction means it will not interact with other HyperVoxel items.


Blend will smoothly blend surface attributes with other HyperVoxel items.

Repulse (invisible)will make the object push away portions of other HyperVoxel items that they come in contact with—sort of likean animated boolean effect. The object itself, however, will be invisible.

Repulse (effector)is similar but will also affect the other HyperVoxel object’s surface with its surface in the areas of contact.

Effector only is just like Repulse (effector)but will be visible when rendered.

Light field interaction allows particles to act as lights on other HyperVoxels objects. Activate Blend for the regular HyperVoxelsobject and use Light field for the “light” object. Each particle of a light field object acts as a kind of point light and even the shape ofthe particle (as a HyperVoxel object) is respected. The falloff of the light is the particle size, the intensity is the luminosity setting, andthe color is the color setting. This works in surfaces as well as volumetrics.

Light field (+shadows) Lightfield is the same as above, but calculates shadows from the point lights.

WarningIf you are using the Blend mode on multiple objects (the only way it works), you may only use gradients on the first item in the list of blendeditems.

HyperTexture Options

HyperVoxels 2.03.7

The HyperTexture pop-up menu determines what the texture will look like. If you look at the small graph located just to the right ofthe Filter pop-up menu, you will see a general cross-section view of the selected texture.

The HyperTexture Coordinatesoptions work just like they do for normal LightWave surfaces. Select Local to have the surfaceattached to the object. Using World will cause the object to “move through” the texture.

The Affect pop-up menu allows you to limit the texture to affect only the bump channel (Bump only), like a regular surface bumpmap. In this state, the edges of the HyperVoxel object will be unperturbed and not show the contours of the texture. The Geometrysetting, the default, affects the entire surface.

HintIf your camera is not going to get very close to a HyperVoxel surface, use the Bump only setting to save rendering time.

You may select a Parent Object using the pop-up menu. This works just like a normal surface reference object, so you can move,scale, and rotate the parent object to animate the texture.

Increase Frequenciesto increase the detail in the texture pattern. Scalesets the relative size of texture and Amplitude sets theintensity (i.e., height) of texture. You will notice the cross-section graph change as you adjust the later two parameters.

On the Filter pop-up menu you have several options that affect the smoothness of the transitions between the texture’s peaks andvalleys. The cross-section graph will change as you adjust these parameters. The various Filter options (HiClip , LowClip , Sine, etc.)provide different basic curve shapes. LoClip clips off low values and stretches the high values creating low harsh valleys. Thisproduces a non-uniform texture with spots on an otherwise smooth surface. HiClip clips off high values and stretches the low values,creating harsh plateaus. The Sineand Sine2options create undulating values for individual curves.

Adjusting Gain will make the curves of the texture more or less pronounced S-shaped—the slope of each curve is adjusted at thebeginning and end in opposite ways. This tends to erode the peaks and fill in the valleys of the texture, if Gain is increased, andemphasizes peaks and valleys (eventually flattening them out), if Gain is decreased. Decreasing Bias lowers everything—faster forpeaks—ultimately to the point where everything is flattened at the minimum value. These settings can be used together and negativevalues are allowed.

NoteHyperTextures will have some effect on the surface of volumetric HyperVoxel objects too. However, due to the nature of volumetric objects, itmay be difficult to detect.

HyperTextures (L-R). Front row: Fractal Bumps, Organic, Rocky 1, Rocky 2. Middle row: Rocky 3, Rocky 4, Crumple,Pebbles. Back row: Stractal, Cromulence, Sine, Manhattan


Surface Options

The options on the Surface - Basictab work just like their counterparts in the normal LightWave Surfacespanel.

NoteThe options on the Surface - Basic and Surface - Adv tabs are only available when the Render Selection pop-up menu is set to SurfaceOnly .

Advanced Surface Parameters

Setting the RayTrace Modeto Full Refraction forces HyperVoxels to bounce rays each time a new refracting (i.e., transparent)surface is found, until it reaches the limit number set as the Recursion Depth. The Single Refractionmode only renders onerefraction, which is enough most of the time. Full Refraction will, of course, increase render time, but will result in moresophisticated effects.

The Fresnel Effectoption (pronounced “fra-nel” ) affects textures with some level of transparency and/or reflectivity. Essentially,these surfaces are more opaque and reflective when viewed from the side and less so when viewed perpendicular (i.e., head on) to thesurface. As such, this option varies transparency and reflection based on the angle of incidence. The Power setting sets the overallamount of effect you want. The Minimum Transparency and Minimum Reflectivity set the minimum amounts of transparency andreflectivity when the surface is viewed head on.

HintUse Transparency settings (Surface - Basic tab) greater than 100% to compensate for the added opacity, particularly on the edges, thatnormally results with this option.

Color Filter works just like its counterpart on the normal Surfacespanel and tints objects seen thorough a transparent surface. TheStrength setting determines the intensity of the effect.

The Shadowsoption lets HyperVoxel objects cast self-shadows. To have them cast shadows on other objects, you must use theHyperVoxel_Shadersurface shader plug-in on the object that is to receive the shadow. The Strength setting determines the intensity ofthe effect.

The Cel Shaderoptions lets you use SuperCelShader on HyperVoxel objects. Note that you do notneed to load the SuperCelShaderplug-in separately.

HyperVoxels 2.03.9

Volumetrics Options

NoteThe options on the Volumetric - Basic and Volumetric - Adv tabs are only available when the Render Selection pop-up menu is set toVolumetrics Only .

The Volumetrics options are used when the HyperVoxels object is used for gas- or cloud-type effects. Use the Color, Luminosity ,Opacity and Density options on the Volumetrics - Basictab to change those parameters for the volumetric object.

The Fractal Noisepop-up menu lets you select the type of pattern. fBm applies a turbulence pattern, while Puffy provides areas ofless-dense “puffs”. The Fractal option yields sharper-edged patterns. Use the Fur option for hair. It is like static Billowing (Seediscussion on Advance Volumetric Parameters). The pattern may have a Local or World reference. It may also be parented to anobject using the Parent pop-up menu.

The Frequencies, Scale, Amplitude , Filter , Gain, and Bias options work the same as previously described for the HyperTextureOptions tab. The small preview window has some other options, however. By default it shows a small preview of the pattern.

PATTERN PREVIEW OPTIONS

Clicking the preview will cycle you through different options:

• Cross-section image of the pattern (default)*• Cross-section graph of the pattern• Thumbnail example of the pattern*

*If you hold the CTRL key while clicking and you have an Effect selected (Volumetric - Advanced tab) a short animation of theimage will be displayed.

AUTOMATIC FREQUENCIESMODE

For volumetric textures, setting Frequenciesto a value of 0 activates a special automatic frequency mode. This dynamically calculatesthe amount of frequencies depending on distance from viewer, resolution, etc. Essentially, an automatic detail refinement process isperformed.

HintSetting Frequencies to 0 is usually the optimum setting and is highly recommended in most cases.


Advanced Volumetric Parameters

The various items on the Render Quality pop-up menu determine the level of detail HyperVoxels uses to render the volume. Thedefault is Medium and should be adequate for most situations. The Thicknesssetting, which defaults to 1, allows you to adjust thegeneral density of the volume.

HintThe optimum Render Quality setting depends greatly on the type of volumetric effect you are trying to achieve. For example, soft-lookingclouds can use a lower setting than thick heavy clouds.

Jittering adds some “noise” to the effect to overcome banding problems that might appear because of volumetric aliasing. Generally,this should only be used when there is some unwanted banding and when the render quality cannot be improved.

ILLUMINATION

The Illumination pop-up menu determines how the HyperVoxels volume is lighted. Self, the default, acts as if the light was comingfrom the viewer. It can be useful to see more details on the object. With Constant, the scattering of light is constant, that is, theamount of light scattered at one point is proportional to the amount of light received at that point.

Diffuse is a special illumination mode designed to accentuate the volume’s “visual feeling.” The amount of light is proportional to thediffuse reflection on the object’s surface boundary. This means if you looked at the object as a surface, the bright areas on the surfacewill also be the brighter areas in the volumetric rendering. This mode can be useful to fake shadows.

Raleigh simulates a strong forward scattering of light within the volume. Light scatters in the direction of the light relatively to theviewer, which means that illumination will be at its maximum when the light faces the viewer. This is perfect to do back-lit clouds,smoke, etc.

Beer uses the pattern’s sample density amount as the illumination value, dramatically reducing contrast between lighted areas. Thisuses the physical model for the scattering of light inside a gas. This setting is also good for clouds.

AMBIENT LIGHT

Ambient Color lets you specify the ambient light color of the volume. This setting works hand in hand with the Color setting on theVolumetric - Basic tab. Ambient color is similar to ambient light in Layout, except it applies only to the selected HyperVoxel object.Basically, the shading process is very similar to what happens with regular object surfaces.

Because of the way illumination is calculated inside volumetrics objects,Ambient Intensity can be higher than 100% withoutoverexposing the image.

HyperVoxels 2.03.11

The two Light pop-up menus let you choose which light sources illuminate the volume.

NoteAvoiding using these Light options if you are raytracing shadows. Otherwise, rendering time may be increased significantly.

The Volumetric Shadowsoption creates shadows within the volume which adds detail and realism. However, it can increase rendertime significantly, especially when you are trying to simulate very dense clouds, like volcanic smoke. Use the Shadow Qualitypop-up menu to choose the render quality of the shadows. The "Textured" quality options will render the shadows taking the noise patterninto account. The Shadow Strengthsets the darkness of the shadows.

The Effect pop-up menu is used to animate volumetric effects. Turbulence makes the texture move towards the viewer. It is likeanimating a texture with the texture velocity parameter. Billowing animates the texture by rotating outward along a velocity vector (ala “Dante's Peak”). It is very good for explosions. Boiling uses multi-levels of textures to obtain a boiling-like effect.

The Effect Speedsetting is the duration of the looping cycle. The value is equal to LightWave Default units (Options panel,GeneralOptions tab) per frame.

Envelopes and Parameter Controllers

The E buttons are merely an envelope controller, which operate just like their counterparts in LightWave Layout. These allow you tovary values over time with spline based results.

The P buttons are parameters controllers. Like an envelope, these also allow you to vary a parameter setting. For envelopes, theparameter is always controlled over time using the frame number. Parameter controllers, on the other hand, can vary the setting usingthe distance to an object, slope, bump height, etc. A simple example is varying the texture color based on the bump height of thetexture. Moreover, you are not limited to whole number increments for keys. You could set a key at 12.234 units, for example.

Parameters controllers use “gradient ramps” (the colored bar) to depict the value change. Essentially, the different colors along thegradient correspond to values for the related Input Parameter. Surface color uses a color gradient, while other parameters use grayscalegradients to depict value changes, where white is the maximum and black is the minimum.

As with envelopes, you have the ability to create, edit and delete keys. (A “key” is characterized by two numbers: its value and itsparameter.). It is the keys that make change the color of the gradient and ultimately the parameter values.

The Input Parameter defines what item will dynamically control the parameter. For example, selecting Time changes the value overa specific time interval and the gradient bar unit is seconds. When set to Frame, the units are frames (essentially making this operatelike a normal envelope).


NoteThe list of parameters varies depending on the particular setting the gradient is being applied to.

Distance to objectuses the Default Unit (Options panel,General Options) as the gradient bar unit and changes the parameterindependently based on the distance from each HyperVoxel point to the selected Reference Object’s pivot point. X-, Y-, and ZDistance to objectwork similarly but measured only along the respective axis. The Reference Objectis only used for inputparameters involving distance to an object.

NoteSince distance is measured from the point location to the Reference Object’s pivot point, it is possible to use the same object as theReference Object .

Left: Slope angle. Right: Incident angle

Slope anglechanges the parameter based on the angle (in degrees) of the HyperVoxel surface relative to the ground (flat on Y axis).Bump uses the height of surface using the LightWave Default Unit. Incident angleuses the angle (in degrees) of the surface normalrelative to the Camera.

NoteOther input parameters may be available depending on how the related Displacement Map panel is set. For example, you can use data fromexternal plug-ins like ParticleStorm and RealFlow.

HyperVoxels 2.03.13

NoteIf you change the Input Parameter after you have already created keys, the existing keys remain in the same positions on the gradient bar.However, their values may change as they will be adjusted relatively using the Start and End values for the new Input Parameter. Forexample, if you had a key at frame 15 using Frame as your Input Parameter and Start and End values at 0 and 30, changing the InputParameter to Time would change that key to .5 (sec.). This is halfway between the default Start and End values of 0 and 1.

The Filter modulates the selected Input Parameter and allows you to have it applied at a rate other than linearly, the default. Forexample, a linear curve is straight starting at the bottom left corner of the graph and ending at the top right. The input parameter isapplied evenly over the gradient bar. If you used a setting that bowed the curve up, the input parameter would change faster at thesteeper areas and slower where it is less inclined. If you were using Time as the Input Parameter, you would be scaling time to befaster at the beginning and slower at the end of the gradient. If your curve slopes downward, the input parameter would be reversedalong this part of the curve.

NoteSince the Filter is only modifying the input, it has no (visual) effect on the gradient bar.

Adjusting Gain will make the curve(s) more or less pronounced S-shaped—the slope of the curve(s) is adjusted at the beginning andend in opposite ways. Bias bows the curve(s). These settings can be used together and negative values are allowed.

The various Filter options (Linear , HiClip , LowClip , Sine1, etc.) provide different basic curve shapes. LoClip clips off low valuesand stretches the high values. HiClip clips off high values and stretches the low values. The Sineoptions create oscillating orundulating values.

THE GRADIENT BAR

The Gradient Bar graphically displays the key values set by the user. If the parameter is a color, the bar will be color and you will seecolor transitions from one key to the next. If the parameter relates to numeric values, the bar will appear in grayscale. The lowest setkey value will be black and the highest will be white. The gradient colors will automatically adjust if you add or change a key valuethat exceeds the previous minimum or maximum.

The Start and End fields set the beginning and end of the visible area of the gradient. There can still be keys set outside this range,however. The Filter is applied to this range.

The Mousebuttons determine what happens then you click on the gradient bar. If Add is active, a key will be created at the point toclick. If Edit is active, you can grab an existing key and drag it left or right, but not past any other existing key. If Deleteis active, akey will be deleted when clicked on. Use the SPACEBAR to cycle through the Mouse settings.

The current key is shown in the gradient bar in orange. Its value will be shown in the Key Value field, which can be edited. If theparameter is a color, this will be a color selector button instead. The Key Parameter field indicates the numerical position of thecurrent key. Note that this value is not limited to integers.

NoteYou can use the left and right arrow keys to select the preceding or next key as the current key. (Make sure that you do not also have an inputfield active.) You may also select the current key by clicking while in the Edit mode.


If you drag on the Scale Keysquick drag button, you will scale all keys in the gradient bar.

The Copy Key button (or c key) copies the value/color of the current key to a memory buffer. The Paste Key(or v key) button pastesthe buffer into the current key.

Use the Load Gradient and Save Gradientbuttons to load and save the gradient bar keys as a file. The Copy Gradient button copiesthe keys to a memory buffer. The Paste Gradientpastes the buffer into the current key. Note that this will overwrite any existing keys.

Clicking OK closes the panel and saves any settings. Cancel forgets any changes made to the panel. Remove Gradientwill turn thisoption off for the parameter.

USING GRADIENTS

Let’s do a quick exercise to give you a better understanding of how gradients work.


2. Click on the Color P button (Surface - Basic tab).

3. Change the Input Parameter to Incident angle and set the Mouse mode to Add .

We will be changing the surface’s color based on the angle of the surface relative to the camera. A surface that faces directly atthe camera will have a 0 angle and a surface facing directly up, down, left, or right would have a 90 angle. Got it? Notice thatthe Start and End values are automatically set at 0 and 90 for you.

By default, you have a single keyframe at 0 degrees. It is set to pure white.

4. Now, click your mouse pointer in the middle of the gradient bar to create a key there.

5. Next, click the Color Selector button.

6. In the color dialog that appears, change the color to RGB 255, 0, 0 and close it.

Your gradient bar should now go from white to red.

HyperVoxels 2.03.15

7. Click your mouse pointer near the end of the gradient bar.

It is likely that you won’t be able to make the key exactly at the end, that is, exactly at 90 degrees. The Key Parameter field willprobably show something in the high 80s.

8. Click your mouse pointer in the Key Parameter field and change it to exactly 90.

9. Click the Color Selector button and change it to RGB 0, 0, 255 and close it.

Your gradient should now go from white to red to blue. You may notice that you cannot see the last key. Since it is exactly at90, it is displayed outside of the visible range.

10. Change the End field to 100 and voila, there it is!

Of course this does nothing other than to satisfy you that the key is there. If the angle of incidence to the camera was greaterthan 90 degrees you couldn’t see it. (Well, unless you got eyes in the back of your head...)

Use your LEFT and RIGHT ARROW KEYSand notice how the selected key cycles through your three keys. This is another way tochange the selected key.

11. Close the gradient panel. Change the Preview mode to Particle to give us a good view of our object and refresh the preview.

You will see a ball that is white where the surface is pointing directly at the camera and then changes to red and then bluetowards it’s edges. Now, if you made an animation and moved the object or camera, the surface colors would automaticallyadjust to the angle of incidence.

12. OK, go back to the gradient panel and select the Edit Mouse mode, if it isn’t already.

13. Drag the Scale Keys button to the left until the blue key is almost in the middle of the bar.

14. Close the gradient panel and refresh the preview.


As you should have guessed, the colors are now shifted toward the camera.

15. OK, go back to the gradient panel and in the Edit Mouse mode, drag the blue key to the very end of the gradient bar.

16. Close the panel and refresh the preview.

We have now move the blue area more towards the edges.

17. Close the gradient panel and HyperTexture (HyperTexture Options tab) to Fractal bumps .

18. Set Scale to 22, Amplitude to 100%, Gain to -69, and Bias to 21. This will give us a nice undulating surface.


Notice now how the surface areas facing the camera are white and go through the colors of our gradient bar as the surface anglemoves away from the camera.

If you were creating a fountain, for example, you would want the particles near the emitter to bond together and as they separatebecome smaller. Use a gradient Parameter to adjust particle size based on the distance to the base object (emitter). When the particlesare emitted (0 distance from the emitter) they will have a user defined size and as they move away from the emitter the particles willshrink to the second user defined size. This would be accomplished by creating two gradient keys, one at 0 distance and one at 1 meter(if the fountain spanned a 1 meter distance). The first key value is set to the larger size (1.2 for example) and a second key is created atdistance of 1 and set to a key value of 0. As the particles move further away they shrink.

Parameters can also be very useful for surfacing an item. To create a rusty surface, you can use the gradient parameters to vary surfacecolor based on bump. This will allow different levels of the bump to have different colors with a nice blend between. For example, areflective surface might change to burnt orange as it approaches the tip of the fractal bumps. This is accomplished by adding values tothe gradient that start one color and move to the burnt orange.

HyperVoxels 2.03.17

HyperVoxel_Particles (Object Displacement plug-in)

HyperVoxel_Particles allows the HyperVoxels Pixel Filter plug-in to get information about individual objects.

HyperVoxels_Shader (Surface Shader plug-in)

This surface shader allows object surfaces to receive shadows from HyperVoxel, as well as reflect and refract them. If you elect tohave the surface receive HyperVoxels shadows, you have the option of using the object’s shadow settings (i.e., Self-, Cast-, ReceiveShadow (Object panel)).

Shadow strengthmakes shadows more or less opaque. The Fast Shadowsrender mode does not account for hypertextures in theshadows. Accurate renders the shadows including the effect of hypertextures.

To use the reflect and refract options, the surface must be reflective or transparent; however, the Reflection Option (Surfacepanel)setting is not considered.

WarningUsing a Multithreading (Render panel) setting greater than 1 Thread with HyperVoxels_Shader can cause LightWave to crash due to therecursive ray tracing required between the pixel filter and the shader. It is therefore strongly recommended that you only use 1 Thread whenusing the shader plug-in. If you disregard this warning, you will be threading on thin ice.

HyperVoxels_Doubler (Pixel Filter plug-in)

The HyperVoxels_Doubler pixel filter plug-in must be loaded after HyperVoxels. (There may be plug-ins loaded in-between, but theyshould not be active.) It performs the second pass after HyperVoxel's rendering pass when the Render ½ Res option is active. Thedefault values give a good balance between quality and render time.

When Adaptive Sampling is inactive, the Doubler performs a straight interpolation between pixels. When active, the Doublerdetermines if each pixel needs to be recalculated or not, depending on its boundary pixels. This option is very similar to Lightwave'sAdaptive Sampling option (Camera panel).

Sampling Thresholdcontrols the edge detection that decides which pixel should be recalculated. Pixels below the threshold level willbe recalculated, those above will be simply interpolated between neighboring pixels. Low values of threshold will make higher qualityimages with finer details but with higher render times. If Doubler creates aliasing problems on objects boundaries, the thresholdshould be set to low values (below 4).

NoteIf the Doubler is installed and Render ½ Res is inactive, the Doubler will be bypassed.


HyperVoxels 2.04.1

cchhaapptteerr4Tutorials

NoteBe sure to check the Scenes\HV2 folder for example Scene files.

Tutorial One: Billowing Ball of Fire

Setting Up1. Add a Null object to an empty Scene in Layout.



Presets1. Choose the Null object from the Object pop-up menu and then click on the Activate button. A message should appear to inform you that the

object has been found and data has been updated.

The HyperVoxels interface may seem a little daunting at first, but with the help of the Presets you can create stunning effectsvery quickly. Soon you will be a HyperVoxels master!

2. Click the Preset button to display a list of preset effect settings. The first tab presented is for Surface effects. These create a surface boundaryfor the radius around your particles and are good for solids and liquids.

3. Click on the Volumetrics tab to view a variety of effects that can be created with the internal volumetric options. As you can see, this engineis good for gaseous effects like flame, clouds, smoke and nebulae. Feel free to click on the different effects to view a short description on thebottom of the panel.You can also switch back to the Surfaces tab and click on those samples for their description as well. Cool, huh?!

4. Make sure you are on the Volumetrics tab and choose the bottom right-most preset, Billowing Fireball. Once you have selected it, click OK tocommit to these settings.

You may notice that the Render Selectionpop-up menu, in the Render Options area of the HyperVoxels panel, will change toVolumetrics, if it wasn’t already.

Preview1. Click on the Refresh button.

4.2 C H A P T E R F O U R : Tutorials

You should see the effect in the preview window, but it will probably be pretty small. Rather than changing any settings, let’suse the new Zoom tool to get a better look.

2. While holding your left mouse button down, drag out a small box around the particle effect in the preview window. When you release themouse, the particle effect will zoom forward to fill most of the screen. Click the Refresh button again to update the render at this higherresolution.

This gives us a nice view of the particle render. This is also a useful function for taking a close look at certain details of aneffect. For now, press the Reset Zoombutton above the preview window.

3. There are two more modes in the Preview window to be aware of. The Preview pop-up menu should currently be set to Object . Change it toParticle and click the Refresh button.

You will see a full-screen view of the particle rendered. This is particularly useful when using multiple-particle objects. Itallows you to quickly render out the effect as it would appear on a single particle. This will yield faster previews and give you avery good idea of what the final effect will be. The remaining Preview option is Scene. This option will render all HyperVoxelselements in the Scene. Use this option if you are blending HyperVoxel items together.

4. Set the Preview back to Object and refresh the Preview.

HintYou can also use the F9 key to refresh the preview window.

Attributes and Animation1. The first thing we need to do to create our animation is determine the minimum and maximum size of the explosion. This will be done by

changing the Particle Size parameter over time. Start by finding the maximum desired size of the explosion. To do this change the ParticleSize value to 2 and refresh the preview.

HyperVoxels 2.04.3

2. You can see the effect is much larger, but not as dramatic as we would like. Try setting the Particle Size to 5 and refresh the preview. Thislooks like a pretty good maximum size.

3. Now let’s find our minimum. The logical assumption would be to start at 0, however, most explosions happen so fast the first frame actuallyhas some size. Let’s try setting Particle Size to .5 and refresh the preview. This should be a pretty good starting frame. Now let's create theanimation.

4. Click on the Envelope button next to the Particle Size input field.

Just like in Layout, we will use an envelope to animate this value. Since explosions happen very fast we only need two keyframes in a very short time frame.

5. First, set the Current Value for frame 0 to .5.

6. Make sure your Mouse Function is set to Create and click on the graph at time 30.

7. Change the Current Value for frame 30 to 5. This will set a linear expansion of the particle size from .5 to 3. Close the Particle Size envelopepanel.

Next, we need the effect to dissipate as it expands. To accomplish this we will use a dissolve envelope over the last ten framesof the animation.

8 Open the Envelope panel for Dissolve. This is located in the object activation area (top-right corner). Create key frames at 20 and 30. Set thedissolve to 0 at frame 0 and frame 20. Set dissolve to 100 at frame 30. This will create a rapid dissolve as the billowing cloud gets to it'smaximum size.

Test render1. Activate Render 1/2 Res.


We can use this option because we added the HyperVoxels_Doublerplug-in during the set-up steps. This allows theHyperVoxels to render every other pixel and then “smart process” the gaps.

2. Set LightWave's camera resolution to Low Res. Choose the animation saver of your choice and render the animation. Go have a sandwich.

Once the animation is rendered, play it back. You will notice that the billowing effect seems to happen a little to fast. This effectis actually a looping effect and if it loops to fast you will notice the repetition. In some cases, this is desirable; however, this isnot one of those cases!

Modifying the effect1. On the Volumetric - Advanced tab, to the right of the Effect pop-up menu is the Effect Parameter input field. This parameter adjusts the loop

length in seconds. Since we want to slow down the billowing effect increase the loop length to 1.5. This will set up a nice slow billowing effectas the explosion grows. Render the animation again (yeah, go get another sandwich) and take a look at the difference changing the speedcan make.

The next thing we want to do is change the look of the effect to be less of a dark smoke cloud and accentuate the fiery nature ofthe effect. To do this we will only need to adjust 3 values; scale, gain and bias.

2. Move the Layout time slider to frame 15 or 16. This will show us a good representation of our effect.

3. Open the HyperVoxels panel and make a preview. Now change the Scale (Volumetric - Basic tab) to 75% and refresh the preview.

You will immediately notice that the effect has become more regular across the entire cloud.

NoteFrequencies is set to 0. This special setting maximizes detail and render speeds. As the effect grows larger or closer, the number offrequencies is automatically adjusted.

4. Let’s add a bit more contrast for the color. There is currently a gradient setting for the color channel that changes the surface color from greyto yellow to orange based on the Local Density (Local Density is the density value of the fractal pattern). Click on the P button for Color andadjust the first color from grey to black (i.e., RGB = 0, 0, 0).

This will give the cloud a rich dark value where there is a low density fractal pattern. Generally this will be at the edges wherethe fire should be converting to smoke.To create more burning on the inside we will adjust the Gain and Bias settings toinfluence the peaks and valleys of the texture.

5. Change the Gain parameter to different settings and refresh the preview. Experiment now to see many variations you can create with onlythis one setting. Once you have tried various values, set the value to 34 and refresh the preview. This setting will give the cloud a nice hotappearance by slightly decreasing the peak of the texture.

HyperVoxels 2.04.5

6. We can finish the effect by adjusting Bias. Bias will adjust the texture from the valleys up where as Gain adjusted from the peaks down. Byreducing Bias you can decrease the effect in the middle of the particle and by increasing it we can flatten the pattern to the peaks.Experiment with different values to see how it affects the cloud. Once you have created several different looks change the Bias to 6. This willresult in a nice hot ball of flame. Create another test animation. Go have another sandwich!

Adding more detail

Hopefully, you aren’t full yet...

1. To increase the amount of detail and significantly change the shape of the explosion we can add multiple particles. Make 3 clones of theoriginal Null object. Now, add another Null object and parent the first four Nulls to this fifth Null. It will help if you rename the parent Nullsomething like CONTROL using Save Object (Objects panel).

2. At frame 0, in Layout keyframe the first four Nulls randomly away from the center parent Null object. (Used positions no more than 1 meterfrom center in any direction.) Go to frame 15 and make a test render. Make sure that the particles have a nice burning effect mixed togetherhere, This is five frames before the dissolve kicks in.

If you make a test render at frame 1 or 0 you will notice that all the particles are to far apart too blend nicely. To combat thiseffect we will animate all Nulls by simply adjusting size on the master Null.

3. Currently, there should only be keyframes at frame zero. Keyframe the Control Null at frame 30. Next, size the Control Null down to 0,0,0 andcreate a key at frame 0. If you drag the time slider, you should see the Null objects moving away from the center, causing the explosion toexpand. Make another test render movie file if you want.

HintYou can add extra variation by animating the child Nulls rather than using the Null object parent.You can also try rotating the parent to createspinning effects.

4. If you are happy with the animation and distance of particles, set your resolution to the desired output size, activate anti-aliasing and motionblur and set your machine to render. All kids like blowing stuff up!


Tutorial Two: The Big Explosion (YAET)

Since you can never have too many ways to blow something up, in this tutorial we will make another explosion using a differenttechnique.


2. Set the Particle Size to 2.

3. Refresh the Preview and you should see a red sphere.

4. Click the Preset button to display a list of preset effect settings and select he Volumetrics tab. Choose the bottom right-most preset, BillowingFireball. Once you have selected it, click OK to commit to these settings.

5. Select (none) from the Effect pop-up menu (Volumetric - Advanced tab).

The Preset was set to Billowing to animate the texture. For this exercise, we will use a world coordinates fractal pattern so thetexture is animated as the volumetric surface moves through it (hold that thought!).

6. Set Gain and Bias to 0 (Volumetric - Basic tab) and refresh the Preview.

7. Increase the Scale (Volumetric - Basic tab) of the texture to 250% and refresh the Preview.

By increasing the scale we make larger details in the particle effect. This will create the effect of the particle appearing to beseparated into different pieces. This is perfect for the explosions since it will vary the surface significantly and hide the sphericalnature of the volumetric area. Now, to expand the explosion, we will just animate the Particle Size.

8. Close the HyperVoxels panel and in Layout and keyframe the Null's Size to 0.2m on all axes at frame 0, and 2m on all axes at frame 20.

HyperVoxels 2.04.7

This will animate the size of the particle over time. With the HyperVoxels setting Particle Size set to Relative, the volume willexpand along with the size of the Null object. This is much easier than enveloping the Particle Size parameter, and it's easier tosee the animated Null object in Layout.

NoteIf we switched the Sizing Mode to Absolute instead of Relative, the HyperVoxel object would stay the same size over the animation.

Next, we are going to animate the texture. For this we won't need one of the supplied effects, we will use the old “worldcoordinates trick.” (“That’s the second time I fell for it this week...” --Max)

9. Open the HyperVoxels panel again (F5) and set the Fractal Noise Coordinates to World (Volumetric - Basic tab).

This specifies that the texture will be evaluated in world coordinates, that is, as the particle expands, it will reveal the theoreticaltexture outside the particle, making a nice turbulent effect on the particle's surface. Imagine the texture is defined as a “warped”area in space. As the volumetric surface passes thru the space (from its increasing size), it will change shape because it is alsorunning through space’s static texture.

We will finalize the effect by making the explosion very hot at the beginning and very cloudy at the end.

10. Click on the Envelope button for the texture Amplitude (Volumetric - Basic tab).

11. Change the Current Value at frame 0 to 250%. Create a new keyframe at frame 20 and set the Current Value to 30 %. Click the AutoScalebutton to see the entire envelope. Close the panel.

12. Reduce Density (Volumetric - Basic tab) to 80% to prevent high texture amplitudes from being clipped against the particle's boundaries.

13. Activate the Render /2 Res option and close the HyperVoxels panel.

14. In the Camera panel set AntiAliasing to Enhanced Low and activate Motion Blur . (This type of effect requires Motion Blur.) Render theanimation!

For a different look, change the Fractal Noisepop-up menu (Volumetric - Basic tab) to Fractal instead of fBm.

WarningDo not use HyperVoxels’ No Antialiasing option when using Motion Blur, as it will not render the blur properly.

NoteMoving the object to a different position will change the fractal texture too, since we using world coordinates.


Tutorial Three: Fiery Gas Planet

This is a really short tutorial that will show you a little bit about using the presets with the Gain and Bias controls to create acompletely new effect.

1. Add a Null object to an empty Scene in Layout.



4. Set your Basic Resolution to Super Low Res (Camera panel).

This way we can make test renders very quickly.

5. Set the Backdrop color (Effect panel) to a nice sky blue for good contrast.

6. Enter HyperVoxels. Select and activate the Null object.

7. Activate Render 1/2 Res . Now for the fun part!

8. Click on the Preset button and select the Volumetric tab. Choose the second flame setting (Fire) and click OK.

9. Set the Preview option to Particle and refresh the Preview. This will give a nice large view of the settings.

10. Exit the HyperVoxels interface and do a quick render (F9).

This will show the background color and from now on, the HyperVoxels preview will also contain the background color. Don'tworry about the size of the effect, we will fix that by adjusting the particle size. Next, we will make some simple changes toyield dramatic results!

11. Open the HyperVoxels interface again. Change the Filter pop-up menu from loClip to Sine2 and refresh the preview.

HyperVoxels 2.04.9

HintPressing the F5 key will bring up the last plug-in interface used. In this case HyperVoxels. If a panel is open, click on the main Layout interfacefirst.

You should see your gas planet is taking shape!

12. Increase the Gain setting slowly and watch the center of your gas planet become more solid in the 2D preview window on the right. Bring thevalue all the way up to 99 for a nice solid center.

13. Now slowly increase the Bias control and watch the preview swatch as the gaseous edges grow! Once you have raised this value to 99 makeanother preview refresh. OK, time to adjust particle size.

14. Set the Preview option back to Object and refresh the Preview.

The effect is quite small. All we need to do is turn up Particle Size.

15. Try a value somewhere near 2.0 and refresh Preview again.

OK! Pretty cool, but it could be a little hotter on this fireball planet (Unless you live in San Antonio.) We will do this byadjusting the Luminosity gradient.

16. Click on the P button to the right of the Luminosity setting.


This is a parameter Gradient that is changing the luminosity of the surface based on texture value. Where the texture is small(on the inside) the luminosity is high. As the texture increases (to the outside) the luminosity falls.

17. Since we want to keep the smokey outer edges, change the beginning value to 125% by clicking in the Key Value input field and entering125.

18. Exit the gradient panel and refresh the Preview.

Looks pretty sweet! And all from a single particle. Whoa!

Finally, we need the outer edges of the planet to move—we need some turbulence.

19. Click on the Volumetric - Advanced tab and change the Effect pop-up to Turbulence . Also, set the Effect Parameter to 3.

The Effect Parameter sets how far the turbulence will travel from one frame to the next. Turbulence moves the texture throughthe object in a direction always towards the camera. This is very important for creating realistic effects of smoke, fire and othernatural effects. If you want to move a texture along an axis, disable Turbulence and use a Parent object (generally a Null) tomove the fractal pattern.

20. Exit the HyperVoxels interface and create a test movie file.

Voila! Fireball city baby!!!

Variation on the theme: If you want to convert this into a burning sun, simply change the color gradient.

Tutorial Four: Crater Scene

This tutorial will show you how to create clouds and how the different HyperVoxels parameters affect the results.

1. Load the CRATER_0.LWS Scene file stored in the HV2 folder.

The scene has two objects: fogMountain and 400p. 400p is the particle object which is used to create the cloud effect over themountains.

2. Press F9 for a quick render. This will provide us with a nice background for our HyperVoxels Preview window.

3. Open the HyperVoxels panel and refresh the Preview.

You should see your mountains surrounded by rows of red ball bearings. Because Surface HyperVoxels render much faster thanVolumetric ones, we are going to use that mode first to get the right shape for our clouds.

HyperVoxels 2.04.11

4. Set the Particle Size to 1.5 and refresh the Preview.

We’ve got some good-sized clouds now, but they are too uniform as you can see.

5. Set Size Variation to 100% to vary the size of particles from 0 to100% of the Particle Size. Refresh the Preview.

You should now see a nice non-uniform sea of clouds.

6. Switch the Size Mode to Absolute . This guarantees that the particle size won't change during an animation. It will stick to the value we havespecified.

Note

By switching to Absolute Mode, the Particle Size value changed. This is because HyperVoxels has converted the value from one relative (tothe object) to a world absolute size.

7. Switch the Render Selection pop-up menu to Volumetrics and refresh the Preview.

The red surface disappears and the inside volume appears as dark-gray noisy clouds.

8. Increase the texture’s Scale (Volumetric - Basic tab) to 250% and refresh the Preview.

You will see the texture update in real-time in its preview window. This gives you an indication of how big it is (compared to aparticle). You can click on the texture preview to change the mode. By default, it shows a cross-section of the texture. Increasingthe Scale creates larger details in the pattern yielding bigger clouds. Things are really taking shape now--we’ve got dark cloudsover our mountain.


9. Change the texture Frequencies from 1 to 5 and observe the texture preview.You should notice that the number of details increases asFrequencies increases. Now, set the Frequencies to 0. When set to 0, HyperVoxels dynamically sets the number of frequencies based onthe viewer’s distance to the object.

10. Let's see what effect Volumetric Shadows (Volumetric - Advanced tab) has on our result. Deactivate this option and refresh the Preview.

You should see the self-projected shadows of the clouds disappear and render time will be noticeably faster. The VolumetricShadows option results in more accurate images, at a cost of rendering time. On big thick clouds like cumulus, VolumetricShadows are necessary; however, on light wispy clouds, it might not. In fact, in this example, we won't use it.

11. OK, to brighten up the clouds, turn the texture Opacity (Volumetric - Basic tab) down to 10% and refresh the Preview.

We now have very bright clouds. At the same time, you can see that the foreground clouds are more transparent. Thus,decreasing Opacity has two effects: first, it increases the transparency of the volume; and two, it increases the brightness.

12. Next, reduce Luminosity (Volumetric - Basic tab) down to 40% and refresh the Preview.

As you can see, this simply turns down the overall luminosity.

13. Set the Thickness (Volumetric - Advanced tab) to 0.1 and refresh the Preview.

Our clouds are now very light and much more transparent. Thickness controls the overall scale of the effect. By setting it to 0.1

HyperVoxels 2.04.13

you divide the effect by 10, making it much lighter. Using values higher than 1 will have the reverse effect, but you probablyalready guessed that.

14. Increase Thickness to 0.5 and refresh the Preview.

The Scene you have should be similar to the included CRATER_FINAL.LWS. We ain’t quite done yet though!

For clouds, two Illumination modes are interesting: Beer and Rayleigh. We are currently using Beer which changes luminosityaccording to density, now let’s see what Rayleigh does

15. Change Illumination (Volumetric - Advanced tab) to Rayleigh and refresh the Preview.

Notice that the maximum amount of luminosity is in the direction of the light (the LightWave light is to the left of the screen).Rayleigh illumination gives the maximum amount of luminosity when the camera looks in the direction of the light (i.e., facingthe light) and the minimum in the opposite direction.

Wow, all that from a couple of red ball bearings, course it’s all ball bearings these days...


HyperVoxels 2.05.1

cchhaapptteerr5Tips and Tricks

HyperVoxels Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of HyperVoxels:

• Presets. Presets. Presets. HyperVoxels is an incredibly powerful and rich enhancement for LightWave 3D. However, it can often bedifficult to get started with so many options. Always using a preset as the starting point for your effects will really help you rampup quickly. Sit down and try each preset, they're fun. After running through them choose a preset and tweak some values to see howeasy it is to transform the settings into a brand new effect.

• Properly adjusting Gain and Bias is one of the most important aspects in getting the right HyperVoxels look, particularly forvolumetrics. These controls can dramatically change the shape and texture of your results. Use small incremental changes and dolots of tests.

• If you want to make an existing object into a HyperVoxel particle object, use Modeler’s Merge tool with the Absolute or Fractionalmode. Use a setting appropriate for the object where you retain the shape, but keep points from being too close.

• When setting up volumetric effects, try different Illumination modes for drastically different results. This is a good first or secondstep before you get too far into designing your effect.

• If you are having problems with an overexposed volumetric effect and/or banding problems, try reducing Thickness and/orLuminosity.

Rendering Tips:• To speed up rendering, try using a higher Thickness level. Thickness determines how far a light ray can be traced into a surface.

Therefore, the thicker the surface, the shorter the distance the ray can travel, which results in fewer calculations. This will causevery dense clouds, so lower Density settings to compensate. You will have to use trial-and-error to find the optimum balancebetween these two settings. Also, using high Thickness settings may result in antialiasing problems.

• Test if the Volumetric Shadowsoption (Volumetric - Advanced tab) is necessary in your Scene. If not, deactivate it. You will savea ton of rendering time.

• Reduce Render Quality (Volumetric - Advanced tab) to the lowest setting with acceptable results. Setting lower than High can beused when the level of cloud detail is not too high, like in Tutorial Four: Crater Scene. You can sometimes even use the Lowsetting.

• For still cloud images, use the World setting for Coordinates. This will compute the texture faster. However, you should generallynot do this with animations and moving particles.

• Use the Render 1/2 resoption.

• If you are not using Motion Blur, activate the No Antialiasing option. This prevents LightWave from recalculating HyperVoxels ateach antialiasing pass, thus reducing render time significantly.

• Use fewer particles and work with your Gain and Bias controls to add detail to your objects.

• Don't make particles too big! One of the most common reasons for long HyperVoxels rendering is the size of particles and howmuch they intersect each other. Play with the size of particles and find the minimum size that gets acceptable results.

• Strike a balance between Particle Size and number of particles. Minimize both.

• Don't use lights for volumetric effects that have raytraced shadows, on complex scenes it may increase the render timestremendously.

• If you do not need shadows projected on your HyperVoxels, turn off shadows for HyperVoxel lights (Volumetric - Advanced tab).

5.2 C H A P T E R F I V E : Tips and Tricks

Blue Skies LScript (cloud.ls)

This Modeler LScript can be used to quickly and easily generate point clouds for use with HyperVoxels 2.0. (The Cloud.ls file shouldbe in your PLUGINS\MODELER\LSCRIPT_SCRIPTSfolder.) Access it by running LScript from the Custom pop-up menu (Objects tab)and selecting the CLOUD.LS file.

The Cloud X, Y, and Z Dimensionparameters define the size of the point cloud on those respective axes. Cloud Bump defines theamount of fractal displacement to apply to the point cloud. Only values between 1 and 3 are accepted. Bump Scaledefines the scaleof the cloud's bump. Bump Type defines the method you would like used to apply the bump. Cloud Definition determines the detailof the object. The higher the value, the more points are generated. Values of 1 and 2 should be sufficient and only values between 1and 3 are accepted.

HyperVoxels 2.05.3

5.4 C H A P T E R F I V E : Tips and Tricks

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