Hello,

i'm just researching Houdini for the use in my office - Can assets (a fire for instance) be exported to 3dsmax and then re-materialed with V-Ray inside 3dsmax or would i need to buy a separate copy of it for use in Houdini?

Thanks in advance - I hope i was clear

Hey, Ribano,

I work at Chaos as a QA for V-Ray Houdini.

There's a lengthy page in the V-Ray for 3ds Max documentation regarding this exact topic. Here's the link: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY4MAX/Houdini+to+3ds+Max+Open+VDB+workflow [docs.chaosgroup.com]

In short - yes, you can save the simulation to VDB, however keep in mind that V-Ray's volumetric shader currently does not support separate fields for fire color and fire intensity. You may not be able to achieve 100% parity between a Mantra render and V-Ray when rendering a simulation which consist of both fire and smoke.

Hope that helps.