Purpose

Unified Volume puts a density field into a scene as smoke, fire, cloud, gas or glow. It does not make the field. Another operator publishes that, such as a Warp FX whose source writes a density field. Unified Volume places the field in the world, gives it a look and hands it to Scene, which collects it like any Geometry.

Realtime Trace and Path Trace draw it. Surface Renderer skips it with a warning.

Use

1. Place Unified Volume from the Geometry view of the Voro menu, under Render. It is a Geometry COMP.
2. On its Resources page, set the first Connections row’s Type to the density input and pick the field in Resource. The list offers what other operators publish, named after the operator and its output. Pulse Refresh Resource List after you add a new producer. The row’s Status says whether the field resolved.
3. Add rows for a temperature field and a velocity field if your producer publishes them.
4. Pick a Volume Look on the Volume page.
5. Add the Unified Volume to your Scene’s Geometry selection and keep its render flag on.

Move, turn and scale the volume on its Xform page, like any Geometry COMP. The field’s shape and motion come from its producer, so change those there.

Inputs and outputs

density is required. Without it Unified Volume stops with an error asking for a Density Field. temperature is optional and drives heat-coloured emission in the looks that glow. velocity is optional. Only Realtime Trace reads it, to blur the volume by its own motion when Shutter is set on its Lens page. Velocity alone draws nothing.

transform comes from the COMP’s own Xform, so you do not connect it in TouchDesigner.

A field is a dense grid of up to 256 cells on each axis, with finite bounds. A field rotated or stretched so that it would span more than 256 cells along a world axis is refused.

scene carries the volume to the Scene.

Controls

Volume page:

• Volume Look sets how the density scatters and glows: neutral, smoke, fire, cloud, nebula, cel, godray or ptgas. The looks are starting points that the controls below adjust. Cloud scatters without glowing, so use an emissive look for a field that should glow.
• Density Scale and Extinction set how thick the volume is. Scatter Albedo is the colour of the light it scatters. Anisotropy (g) leans scattering forward, toward positive values, or back. Ambient is a fill light inside the volume.
• Emission Color and Emission Scale make it glow. Emission Scale starts at 0.
• Heat Lo, Heat Hi and Heat Gamma remap the temperature field to 0 to 1. Heat Lo must stay below Heat Hi. Emit Cold and Emit Hot colour the glow from the cool end of that range to the hot end.
• Gas Extinction, Gas Albedo, Tint and Emission Hype set the ptgas look. With no temperature field, ptgas takes its heat from density, measured against Density Max.
• Detail Amount, Detail Freq, Detail Octaves and Detail Speed break up the density with noise, which Detail Speed animates.
• Emission Light Reach and Emission Light Gain set how far and how strongly the glow lights surfaces in Path Trace. Realtime Trace lights the scene from the volume with its own Volume Light control instead.

Cloud page:

• The Cloud controls shape the cloud look’s scattering: its back lobe, multiple scattering, powder darkening, silver lining at the edges, body fill and sky tint, and how much sun, sky and the volume’s own glow light it.
• Domain Window fades the density near the faces of the field’s box, so the box edge never shows where volumes overlap. 0 turns it off.

Advanced page:

• These set how Path Trace integrates the volume: the Froxel W, H and D grid, the Z Near to Z Far depth range it covers, Self-Shadow Steps and Shadow Density, Occupancy Eps, and the ELF Resolution and ELF Iterations of the light the glow casts. Z Near must stay below Z Far. Realtime Trace marches the field itself and sets its volume quality on its own Medium page.

Rays page:

• Camera, Shadows, Indirect and Emits Light decide which rays see the volume, in Realtime Trace only. With Emits Light off, the volume glows where you see it and lights nothing.

Notes

A scene holds up to 16 volumes, each with its own bounds, transform and look.

Apart from the two Emission Light controls, the Volume and Cloud pages mean the same in Realtime Trace and Path Trace.

In Realtime Trace, volumes cast shadows on surfaces. A glowing volume is also a light like any emissive surface, and lights surfaces, other volumes and itself.

Ports

Inputs

• density density field required
• temperature temperature field
• velocity velocity field
• transform row

Outputs

• scene scene required

Parameters

Advanced

Froxel W (Froxw) Int op('unified_volume').par.Froxw

Default:

160

Range:

8 to 256

Froxel H (Froxh) Int op('unified_volume').par.Froxh

Default:

90

Range:

8 to 256

Froxel D (Froxd) Int op('unified_volume').par.Froxd

Default:

128

Range:

8 to 256

Z Near (Znear) Float op('unified_volume').par.Znear

Default:

0.1

Range:

0.001 to 50

Z Far (Zfar) Float op('unified_volume').par.Zfar

Default:

20

Range:

0.1 to 2000

Occupancy Eps (Occupancyeps) Float op('unified_volume').par.Occupancyeps

Default:

0.0001

Range:

0 to 1

Self-Shadow Steps (Shadowsteps) Int op('unified_volume').par.Shadowsteps

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 32

ELF Resolution (Elfresolution) Int op('unified_volume').par.Elfresolution

Default:

48

Range:

8 to 128

ELF Iterations (Elfiterations) Int op('unified_volume').par.Elfiterations

Default:

64

Range:

1 to 256

Volume

Density Scale (Densityscale) Float op('unified_volume').par.Densityscale

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 32

Extinction (Sigmat) Float op('unified_volume').par.Sigmat

Default:

2

Range:

0 to 64

Scatter Albedo (Scatalbedor) Float op('unified_volume').par.Scatalbedor

Default:

0.9

Range:

0 to 1

Scatter Albedo (Scatalbedog) Float op('unified_volume').par.Scatalbedog

Default:

0.92

Range:

0 to 1

Scatter Albedo (Scatalbedob) Float op('unified_volume').par.Scatalbedob

Default:

0.96

Range:

0 to 1

Anisotropy (g) (Anisotropy) Float op('unified_volume').par.Anisotropy

Default:

0.3

Range:

-0.95 to 0.95

Ambient (Ambientr) Float op('unified_volume').par.Ambientr

Default:

0.04

Range:

0 to 1

Ambient (Ambientg) Float op('unified_volume').par.Ambientg

Default:

0.05

Range:

0 to 1

Ambient (Ambientb) Float op('unified_volume').par.Ambientb

Default:

0.07

Range:

0 to 1

Shadow Density (Shadowdensity) Float op('unified_volume').par.Shadowdensity

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 8

Emission Color (Emissionr) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emissionr

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Emission Color (Emissiong) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emissiong

Default:

0.4

Range:

0 to 1

Emission Color (Emissionb) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emissionb

Default:

0.1

Range:

0 to 1

Emission Scale (Emissionscale) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emissionscale

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 16

Volume Look (Look) Menu op('unified_volume').par.Look

Default:

0

Options:

neutral, smoke, fire, cloud, nebula, cel, godray, ptgas

Kelvin Lo (Kelvinlo) Float op('unified_volume').par.Kelvinlo

Default:

900

Range:

500 to 16000

Kelvin Hi (Kelvinhi) Float op('unified_volume').par.Kelvinhi

Default:

2000

Range:

500 to 16000

Brightness Falloff (Bbfalloff) Float op('unified_volume').par.Bbfalloff

Default:

0.35

Range:

0 to 1

Gas Extinction (Gasextinction) Float op('unified_volume').par.Gasextinction

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 64

Gas Albedo (Gasalbedo) Float op('unified_volume').par.Gasalbedo

Default:

0.8

Range:

0 to 1

Tint (Tintr) Float op('unified_volume').par.Tintr

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Tint (Tintg) Float op('unified_volume').par.Tintg

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Tint (Tintb) Float op('unified_volume').par.Tintb

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Emission Hype (Emishype) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emishype

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 32

Heat Lo (Heatlo) Float op('unified_volume').par.Heatlo

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 1

Heat Hi (Heathi) Float op('unified_volume').par.Heathi

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 2

Heat Gamma (Heatgamma) Float op('unified_volume').par.Heatgamma

Default:

1

Range:

0.1 to 4

Density Max (Densitymax) Float op('unified_volume').par.Densitymax

Default:

1

Range:

0.01 to 64

Emit Cold (Emiscoldr) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emiscoldr

Default:

0.3

Range:

0 to 1

Emit Cold (Emiscoldg) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emiscoldg

Default:

0.05

Range:

0 to 1

Emit Cold (Emiscoldb) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emiscoldb

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 1

Emit Hot (Emishotr) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emishotr

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Emit Hot (Emishotg) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emishotg

Default:

0.7

Range:

0 to 1

Emit Hot (Emishotb) Float op('unified_volume').par.Emishotb

Default:

0.3

Range:

0 to 1

Detail Amount (Noiseamp) Float op('unified_volume').par.Noiseamp

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 1

Detail Freq (Noisefreq) Float op('unified_volume').par.Noisefreq

Default:

2

Range:

0 to 32

Detail Octaves (Noiseoct) Int op('unified_volume').par.Noiseoct

Default:

4

Range:

1 to 8

Detail Speed (Noisespeed) Float op('unified_volume').par.Noisespeed

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 8

Emission Light Reach (Elfreach) Float op('unified_volume').par.Elfreach

Default:

2

Range:

0.01 to 100

Emission Light Gain (Elfgain) Float op('unified_volume').par.Elfgain

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 16

Cloud

Cloud Back Lobe (Cloudg2) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudg2

Default:

-0.25

Range:

-0.95 to 0

Cloud Lobe Blend (Cloudlobeblend) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudlobeblend

Default:

0.5

Range:

0 to 1

Cloud MS Octaves (Cloudmsoct) Int op('unified_volume').par.Cloudmsoct

Default:

3

Range:

1 to 6

Cloud Powder (Cloudpowder) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudpowder

Default:

0.35

Range:

0 to 1

Cloud Silver Gain (Cloudsilver) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudsilver

Default:

1.4

Range:

0 to 8

Cloud Silver Sharp (Cloudsilverpow) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudsilverpow

Default:

8

Range:

1 to 32

Cloud Body Fill (Cloudbodyfill) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudbodyfill

Default:

0.5

Range:

0 to 2

Cloud Sky Tint (Cloudskytint) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudskytint

Default:

0.5

Range:

0 to 8

Cloud Light Gain (Cloudlightgain) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudlightgain

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Cloud Env Gain (Cloudenvgain) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudenvgain

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Cloud ELF Gain (Cloudemfgain) Float op('unified_volume').par.Cloudemfgain

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Domain Window (Domainwindow) Float op('unified_volume').par.Domainwindow

Default:

0.12

Range:

0 to 0.5

Rays

Camera (Raycamera) Toggle op('unified_volume').par.Raycamera

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On

Shadows (Rayshadows) Toggle op('unified_volume').par.Rayshadows

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On

Indirect (Rayindirect) Toggle op('unified_volume').par.Rayindirect

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On

Emits Light (Rayemit) Toggle op('unified_volume').par.Rayemit

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On