LW's HyperVoxels => Max' ???

Melak

I played around with the LW trial version, and got to know HyperVoxels. They seem to be incredibly useful in just about any effect, and are relatively easy to set up. I wondered if there was anything remotely like it in 3D Studio Max, that allows you to create volume stuff that easily (or at all!). I fear that particles with their flow diagram setups are the only thing that could produce anything close, if at all
And yes, I've been thinking about switching, but it's so different and I'm not sure if I want to learn almost everything once again, but there are other threads about that.
I'd be happy about any info you can give me

Mr. Wilde

I'm not a Max user, but I heard about FumeFX and Afterburn, both from Afterworks

fluxfire

I have a buddy that uses max and as far as i know there isn't any thing like that in max but he has max 8 so i am not sure about the new version of max.

As for LW since i am still learning i have found that there is alot more options then most other programs.

lots

Hypervoxels have their uses, but they have their own set of problems. They're god awful slow, you can't hook nodes up (yet) and LW's particle solution could use work. Because of the particle system's short comings, using hypervoxels with any sort of fluid like behavior is relatively difficult. However its pretty good for doing puffs of clouds/nebula for fly through animations, can be used to generate bushes and other foliage on a landscape, rocks/asteroids, etc. Using it for explosive fire balls is also ok, but using it for smoke (with its more fluid like behavior) is not really possible. One problem I have with hypervoxels them selves are their spherical shape (basically each particle or null object you use will have a sphere of the hypervoxel texture, it can be made to blend with other particles/nulls but it doesn't really look natural)

If you want to see a more fluid like effect, like something you'd see from FumeFX listed above, check out Dynamite. But that brings in a whole new set of problems

Hopefully one day soon we'll see some advancements to all these particle effects in LW

I do agree though, LW comes with a whole lot of stuff out of the box for fairly cheap

Melak

Aw, looks like max doesn't have anything like that...and volumetric effects in max take even longer than hypervoxels (at least the few tests I did).
FumeFX looks very nice, but is just about too expensive, I'm only do modeling as a hobby and max itself was already epxensive enough :P
Thanks, now I know that I either can switch to LW or pay a whole lot of money..hmm I'll see about that

lots

I should add that Hypervoxels are slow in thier volumetric mode. Sprite based and surface based hypervoxels are pretty quick

I have not tested the speed really on the latest beta, but hopefully there are some improvements.

Guerrilla

MAX doesn't really come with very impressive volumetric particles stuff out of the box, but with a bit of trickery fairly convincing results are very possible. Google around for Allan Mckay and Pete Draper for very impressive plug-in free particle stuff.

--edit-- To cut down on google-time:

Allan McKay (he's got a bunch of tutorials hosted on different sites though, so I'd still give google a shot)
..::xenomorphic.co.uk::..

[Deleted User]

what do you use volume effects for in max?

Melak

For example: a lightsource normally just illuminates your objects in the scene, but if you need to see a "column" of light (sun shines through clouds) the lightsource has to illuminate the air (or little dust or whatever) in the path of the light so it get's visible. Likewise, you can also use volume light effects to generate a nebula that you can actually move around or even through (or clouds for that matter).