Supported 3ds Max Objects and Properties

Overview

  • Krakatoa started as a stand-alone renderer and although it is now integrated into 3ds Max as a DLR render plugin, it does not interact with all sub-systems of 3ds Max.
  • This topic will discuss the objects and their properties that affect Krakatoa.

Particle Sources

  • Krakatoa’s main purpose is the rendering and saving of particle data provided by the dedicated particle systems of 3ds Max, including Particle Flow, Legacy Particles and Thinking Particles.
  • Krakatoa can load particles saved to various file formats using its own dedicated PRT Loader object.
  • Krakatoa also supports geometry vertices as particles
  • Krakatoa can generate particles inside the volume of a geometry object using the PRT Volume object.
  • Krakatoa can convert Splines, HairFarm hair converted to splines on top of the stack, or all hairs from the 3ds Max Hair&Fur modifiers using a didicated PRT Hair object.
  • Krakatoa can convert FumeFX simulations to particles based on the simulation’s Smoke and Fire channel using a dedicated PRT FumeFX object.
  • Krakatoa MX 2 and higher can directly load particles generated by Chaos Group’s Phoenix FD when the FFX/PFD option is enabled. There is currently no dedicated conversion object.
  • Krakatoa can accept particles provided by 3rd party plugins via the PRT Source object.
  • For a list of the supported Particle Sources and their behavior when loading, rendering and saving particles, please see the Particle Sources chapter.

Geometry Objects

  • 3ds Max Geometry Objects can be used as:
    • Particle sources via the Geometry Vertices option
    • Volume definition for the PRT Volume objects to generate particles inside the object’s volume
    • Volume definition for the PRT Loader objects to cull particles inside or outside the volume and acquire normals
    • Surface definition for the Krakatoa Geometry Lookup operator in Particle Flow to acquire surface data
    • Volume definition for the Krakatoa Geometry Test operator in Particle Flow to send out particles inside, outside or on the surface of the geometry
    • Surface definition for the Krakatoa Collision Test operator in Particle Flow to send out and change the velocity of particles colliding with the geometry object
    • Matte Objects to occlude light and particles for integration with other renderers
  • When using Geometry Objects, Krakatoa acquires the world state render TriMesh of the object regardless of the object’s class.
  • This means that all objects that can produce a render-time mesh including Primitives, Polygon and Editable Meshes with and without modifiers, Patches, NURBS and Renderable Splines can be used.
  • In some cases, non-renderable splines will be used by converting the spline to a TriMesh internally, for example PRT Volume will convert a closed spline to a TriMesh on the fly.

Common Node Properties

  • Krakatoa uses some of the common node properties of 3ds Max objects.
  • A Node in 3ds Max is the top-level scene object that contains the transformation controller, visibility controller, material and various display and render-related properties.
  • It is the object responsible for the placement and behavior of a modified base object in the scene.
  • The properties supported for all scene objects that can be used by Krakatoa are:

Node Transformations - Position, Rotation and Scale

  • In general, node transforms can be applied, but there are several special cases to keep in mind:

PRT Loader

  • The Transformations can be turned on and off by the user via the “Use Node Transforms” checkbox.

PRT Volume

  • The source mesh can be evaluated in object or world space based on the state of the “In World Space” checkbox.
    • When unchecked (object space), the particles will be created in mesh’s object space, and the transforms of the PRT Volume will be applied to the resulting point cloud.
    • When checked (world space), the particles will be created in world space, and the PRT Volume object’s transforms will not be applied.

PRT Surface

  • A single source mesh can be evaluated in object or world space based on the state of the “In World Space” checkbox.
    • When unchecked (object space), the particles will be created in mesh’s object space, and the transforms of the PRT Surface will be applied to the resulting point cloud.
    • When checked (world space), the particles will be created in world space, and the PRT Surface object’s transforms will not be applied.
  • When multiple source meshes are picked, the evaluation will always be in world space and the PRT Surface object’s transforms will not be applied.

PRT Hair

  • When the distribution source is a Spline object, the particles will be created in object space, and the transformations of the PRT Hair object will be applied.
  • When the distribution source is 3ds Max Hair & Fur (whole scene), the particles will be created in world space, and the PRT Hair object’s transforms will not be applied.

Node Object Color (Wirecolor)

  • Used as the particle color source when no other source is available.
    • PRT Loader - used if no Color channel is being loaded and no color is provided via Krakatoa Channels Modifier or Material.
    • PRT Volume - used if no Vertex Color channel is provided by the Source Geometry and no color is provided via a Magma Modifier or Material.
    • PRT Surface - used if no Vertex Color channel is provided by the Source Geometry and no color is provided via a Magma Modifier or Material.
    • PRT FumeFX - used if no Color channel is provided via a Krakatoa Channels Modifier or Material.
    • Particle Flow - defined per-event by the Display operator; used if no Material Operator is applied to the Event containing the particle.
    • Geometry Vertices - used if no Vertex Color channel is found and no Material is assigned.
    • Thinking Particles - not used. The Particle Group Color will be used instead, unless a Vector Data channel named Color is provided by the particle.

Node Hidden Flag

  • When true, the object will be ignored by the renderer.
  • When false, the object will be considered by the renderer.

Node Renderable Flag

  • When true, the object will be considered by the renderer.
  • When false, the object will be ignored by the renderer.

Node Material

  • When assigned to a Geometry object, Legacy Particle System, PRT Loader or PRT Volume, the material will be evaluated as the source of render-time particle data channels like Color, Emission, Absorption, Density, SpecularPower and SpecularLevel.
  • See Supported Materials for details on the Materials and their properties that can be used.

Visibility track

  • Used only by the PRT Loader to modulate the particle Density.
  • Supports arbitrary values outside the 0-1 range.