The HIDDEN Settings for VDBs In Unreal Engine

[@kingserk]

Thx that was really helpful...

[@revisualisation]

God! I've been suffering for a week with pixels in my smoke, and you just fixed it! I am incredibly grateful to you! I'm really looking forward to a new video on this topic in 5.4, even if it's Shorts!

[@kutto5017]

This fixes pixels in smoke? Haven't watched it yet but it's been driving me nuts....

[@daniellanekimball]

so thankful for your channel Josh, keep the great work going!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thanks so much. Just want the tech to get out of the way sometimes so we can spend more time creating.

[@azielarts]

Amazing Joshua!!! BEST VDB video ever. I have this permanently bookmarked

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Wow, thanks! Glad it was helpful

[@AharonRabinowitz]

This is great. Thank you. Just so you know you can right click on the VDB master material and choose create material instance. If you do that making changes material is much easier. You can easily drop in different VDB’s and make changes to all of the parameters.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Sometimes this didn't work for me so I thought I'd do the foolproof way.

[@WeareVRMUSIC]

I love vdb‘s from pixel lab and try a lot in Blender. Your video helps me a lot inside Unreal! Thank you!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thanks for saying! Glad my work is helping.

[@alexdang]

Great tutorial, on point and awesome edit. Entertaining and straight forward! Thanks so much

[@marcfruchtman9473]

Cool stuff. Sooo many console commands, glad you manage to solve those.

[@copperband43]

Hi! I'm a subscriber who is watching your videos hard. I'm studying vdb while watching your videos. But I have a question. I'm using lumen and I'm making a scene with glass behind the vdb, where vdb and glass overlap, the vdb disappears and only the glass is visible. But there's nothing wrong with pathtracking. How can I use vdb in lumen without any problems?

[@gibgibGG]

Awesome Josh! 👍 Thanks for taking the time to show us this winding path. Very helpful 🤠

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kingserk]

Awesome help .... thx so much for this video...

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hey, thank you for the super thanks!

[@johnsonchan9708]

Well，I got a issue, in lit mode, the VDB does not quite contact with UE exponential fog, which is quite dissapointing when I have VDB far away the camera ,with scene fill with dense fog.

[@lotteche7399]

Do you have a solution?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

I'm not sure what effect you're after. Maybe join my discord and post in the support forum with pictures.

[@bornbrewedmusic9786]

Thanks Josh keep up the awesome work.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Thanks! Will do!

[@jbach]

Cool! Could you possibly post the cVars? How does the PixelLab VDB Shader compare with the new native SVT Master Material?

[@samuelculbreth7750]

Actual gold. Thank you!!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Glad it was useful

[@fahadhassan3556]

Just bought bunch of vdbs after your video...love them...the only issue the vds with high res more than 40gb and 100gb not importing into unreal...but importing easily into blender and after effects both.. i even tried solitting the vdb files into multiple small chunks but still not imprting into unreal....but some of the vdbs from pixel lab imort easily with High res and 35gb file size

[@ChucxChuck]

Thanks Josh, this is very helpful. I love how your videos simplyfy setups. I have a special request, can you please make a video on setting up Vset3d and antilatency. Thanks in advance.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Cheers for the kind words. Sorry Im not familiar with Vset3d.

[@JasonKey3D]

good stuff 👍

[@JoshuaMKerr]

cheers

[@fnordcorps2552]

Hi - any idea why my VDB is appearing as a cube using the Pixelab shader in UE5.3.2? Tried playing around with the instance settings but it does not seem to solve the problem. This happens with the VDB shader that comes with out of the box

[@slumsnake1303]

Wonderful video, so many useful console commands! How do you solve the problem with Volumetric fog? I noticed that volumetric fog has absolutely no effect on VDB effects (this is true even for niagara fluids, which were created in unreal itself). I have been looking for a solution for a very long time, but to no avail. Maybe you have an answer?

[@kickheavy8982]

Have you been able to get VDBs to work in Unreal 5.5? They work fine in 5.4 but in 5.5 nothing shows up. I don't even get the dragon icon anymore when dropping a heterogeneous volume into the viewport.

[@Pivox-r8e]

Hello, I have a problema in unreal 5.4.4 the command r.pathtracing.heterogrnious.volume. Is not available or listed in the commands, and because of that the bdv is no visible in path tracing, can someone help me with this please ???? Thanks

[@aliamirian15]

man you are great . just great!

[@chriswong225]

thank you for your great tutorial. however i have one more issue I cannot fix myself for VDB. i would like to set VDB as a separate render layer but its always storer nothing on that layers...

[@JoshuaMKerr]

That sounds like Unreal being buggy

[@visualstoryteller6158]

Does fire can interact with a camera footage? Asking from the sense of photorealism

[@JoshuaMKerr]

If I understand your question properly, the fire animations are 'baked in' so they dont interract with other things. The idea is to use vdbs that look correct depending on what your scene requires. Does that help?

[@Digital_Guerrero]

This is great thanks! have anyone run into VDB disappearing at close range in Path Trace mode? I can't seem to find a solution.

[@fabiofernandes1580]

Awsome tutorial Josh! For me, everything is working perfectly but when I try to focus on a VDB next to a mesh (both exact same distance from camera) , only the mesh gets in focus. To focus the VDB I need to pull up the focus distance very far away. DO you know what's causing this issue?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

This might be an issue with VDBs at this stage. I know it works in Pathtracing, but I may need to have a mess around with lumen

[@LoganVFX]

Hello, I'm having a problem with the vdb visibility when I am using Path tracing. I made sure to use each command you showed in the video but nothing seems to be helping.. It works in lit mode but once i move to Path tracing everything is gone.. I noticed that tweaking the material temperature is making red pixels/artefacts appear but it clearly isn't smoke :x Would you have an idea?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hmm, I'm not sure. I haven't had that happen to me. Maybe start a new project or try a different vdb.

[@LoganVFX]

@@JoshuaMKerr I think it has to do with the projet itself yea. Thx for the reply 👍

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@LoganVFX anytime

[@kickheavy8982]

I'm having the exact same problem. Did you ever figure it out? I'm going nuts.

[@faradaysinfinity]

I am having this problem as well @JoshuaMKerr

[@Kiezly]

Pixelated fire might actually be a cool idea for a music video or something like that 😅

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Cant Argue with that

[@marcogrob3899]

Joshua! where is the link to your patreon and were you able to import the pixel lab vdb's as hires? My Unreal crashed over and over (Rtx 4090 Threadripper etc) Mine look like crap in lumen too ! Best Marco

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Hi man, yeah I had trouble with one high res asset which was the nebula but haven't solved why just yet (I'm on a 3080). The mid quality was more than enough though. I think lumen needs some updates to shadows and translucency to work properly but asside form that they looked prety good on my end. If you'd like to join my patreon here's the link. Woudl be good to have your support. bit.ly/3pcBuBn

[@marcogrob3899]

Thanks for the link! Thanks very helpful as per usual. It actually works now!! I left everything as is when I imported. But my shaddows are still off..... THANKS ! I will become a patreon@@JoshuaMKerr

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@marcogrob3899 Amazing, glad its working too. But yes I think shadows are a future update. Works nicely in pathtracer

[@armondtanz]

im kinda having problems looping these in sequencer? theres a looping option but i have no luck? any help?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Is the sequence set to loop?

[@djtc2093]

Hey man. Great vids. So there is this weird thing where if your VDB is placed further away from the centre of the map the shadows and general fx quality is degraded heavily, any idea why?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@djtc2093 Hmm, maybe to do with anti aliasing

[@djtc2093]

@@JoshuaMKerr Still nothing. It's just a shadow issue, have you tried putting the VDB far from the centre of the level and seeing if your shadow quality really degrades?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@djtc2093 I haven't tried that. Have you tried using Niagara fluids to create the effect. I've found them to be very good quality.

[@djtc2093]

@@JoshuaMKerr Do you mean importing the VDB to niagara fluids and using it through a Niagara system?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@djtc2093 No, I just mean simply working within Niagara. Im hearing VDBs still have a lot of quirks and quality issues.

[@isanVFX]

Hey, PathTracing option not showing for me, ive read that they denied path tracing for old cards. Do you know the solution to make PathTracing show again?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

What version of Unreal are you in?

[@isanVFX]

@@JoshuaMKerr 5.2.2, why? I didnt use path tracing in 5.1.1 so i dont remember if i had the option over there. Anyways, i opened 5.4 and there is no path tracing either. I have a very bad card anyways, Quadro P600, but i dont know why epic changed that.

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@isancreates1258 Hmm not sure if that card is supported.

[@isanVFX]

@@JoshuaMKerr If i can`t render path tracing, Is there any other way to make the vdb emissive ?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Can it not be done through the material options either in details or the material graph itself?

[@DeliProductions]

Great video! But the discount code doesn't seem to work?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Looking into this now

[@JoshuaMKerr]

You can try again now. Should work

[@davidratajczak8408]

Cool video but at some point nobody is explaining how we can use VDBs.. with a Lumen environment, and why high res (50 Gb) vdb sequences can't be display properly with high resolution, but looks super low inside of Unreal Engine

[@JoshuaMKerr]

VDBs should work natively in unreal with lumen. Im not sure about the low res issue.

[@davidratajczak8408]

​@@JoshuaMKerr Cool to know for Lumen, because I saw a lot of persons on youtube talking about path tracing exclusively so I thought it was part of the problem Basically I got a super high resolution atomic explosion vdb sequence from The Pixel Lab, and the look in the viewport + after a sequencer render is pretty "ugly" because kind of blurry and low poly And it's like there are some hidden parameters or missing steps to increase the vdb resolution ? I see a lot of import settings in 8 bits, so, I guess importing a VDB in 32 bits should help ? (the pixel lab tutorial I watched was with a low res vdb, and 8 bits import) I'm quite desperate because the VDB looked soooo cool in their renders on their website ! haha

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@davidratajczak8408 It really does depend a bit on the quality of the vdb. The pixel lab vdbs are very good, but not all can stand up to close scrutiny. It's hard to know if it's your settings or the vdb. I have a discord server with a support forum if that's of any use.

[@davidratajczak8408]

@@JoshuaMKerr Oh for sure will join your Discord thanks a lot !

[@JoshuaMKerr]

@@davidratajczak8408 No worries

[@spencerking857]

Does this work in 5.2.1?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

It was a new feature in 5.3

[@UE5n00b]

crash on 5.2 and i can't use 5.3 cos it mess all my meshes and textures :/

[@AharonRabinowitz]

Unfortunately, VDBs only work natively in unreal engine 5.3.

[@UE5n00b]

shoot! -_- thing is 5.3 mess al my shaders and meshes . I've seen people working on 5.2 with VDB just fine :/ how is that?@@AharonRabinowitz

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Have a look in project settings to see if substrate is enabled. Ive had that cause big problems for me.

[@AharonRabinowitz]

@@UE5n00b There is an external plugin for VDB's in earlier versions but they are complicated to use and use a different material system. kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3bGnayurKiKl7s

[@ContentMonsters]

⭐

[@akiAlex]

Thanks! Very helpful! BUT WHY!!?? Why does every KZbinr who shows the console commands in UE, that they have already typed during the video BTW, do not post them in the video description? Is this some kind of code or religion that denies doing it? I swear, every single one! =))

[@JoshuaMKerr]

I usually do. Mustve missed it on this one. Thankfully, Unreal's Output Console now works like a search box, so just type part of the cmd in, and the rest will come up. Not as annoying as it used to be.

[@akiAlex]

@@JoshuaMKerr Yeah, and now you can save them and just push =) BTW, do you know, is it possible to make VDB emit light in UE in lumen?

[@faradaysinfinity]

@@akiAlex came for this. i thought emissive VDB were available but it seems not

[@jysn101]

any of this written down? all those console commands...

[@Kedriik]

My vdbs break like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnelinqgodR_b7s Any idea why and how to fix it?

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Im not sure about this one. Looks like it's an offset problem but I have no idea the fix

[@BobCarl-b8s]

Shields Heights

[@MaryBaylor-s6m]

Dino Dam

[@ShannonTucker-i4l]

Kendall Crescent

[@babludebbabludeb2713]

Eloisa Villages

[@akiAlex]

r.PathTracing.HeterogeneousVolumes - no such command in 5.4 r.HeterogeneousVolumes.MaxShadowTraceDistance r.HeterogeneousVolumes.OrthoGrid.ShadingRate 1 r.HeterogeneousVolumes.FrustumGrid.ShadingRate 1 r.HeterogeneousVolumes.FrustumGrid.MaxBottomLevelMemoryInMegabytes r.HeterogeneousVolumes.OrthoGrid.MaxBottomLevelMemoryInMegabytes

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Heterogeneous volumes may be enabled by default in 5.4

[@akiAlex]

@@JoshuaMKerr Probably.

[@vincelund7203]

Good god! Why's it gotta be so COMPLICATED?!

[@JoshuaMKerr]

Oh, believe me... this is the easy way. Try building the shader from scratch.

[@AharonRabinowitz]

It’s even easier if you right click on the master material and choose create material instance. I designed it so that if you worked with a material instance, it was easy to drop in different VD B’s and also to make changes to things like color intensity. Try it out!

[@kickheavy8982]

@@AharonRabinowitz Thanks for this Aharon! Extremely helpful material for new Unreal users like myself. Do you have any tips on how to get the scale and position of the imported VDBs to line up with where they were in C4D? For example, inside C4D, if you had a pyro sim of fire spreading across an object, how would you get the same vdb and object to line up properly after importing into Unreal. Trying to do it by hand results in things not lining up right because the size and positions are way off from the original scene.

[@VyNguyen-om9zz]

cool~ it's help me a lot but the time rendering seem slower when I used it I use RXT 4090 ti but it take 30mins for 1 picture with HD1080 T-T

[@JoshuaMKerr]

what was it that made the render slower?