This may interest some, but it's way over my head!

Is there a Poser plug-in for it? :)

Quote - Is there a Poser plug-in for it? :)

If there isn't, maybe someone could now write one? ;-)

Wow, way out of my league I can only imagine. I'm still trying to come to terms with Carrara (which I neglect), nevermind Blender... But this, not even a consideration even if my computer could run it.

hmmm, lots of biggish words and no screenshots of the user interface.

"Hyperbolic advection of narrow-band level sets "  :woot:   

I ned that obviously, just one question, whats a narrow-band level set ? 

:roll:

There isn't a UI... I don't think... it's a C++ library for more efficiently working with / storing  / retrieving the data required for volumetric effects... as far as I understand it ;-)

So a programming tool / resource...

But no idea what a narrow band level set is... he he. A Citizen's Band Radio on a sturdy table perhaps?

"… more efficiently working with / storing / retrieving the data required for volumetric effects …"

That's what I read - bigger, badder clouds, fire etc. with less horsepower - backend improvements for optimizing existing effects. Maybe it'll work with the non-commercial version of Houdini so folks can give it a try - and maybe not see any difference unless you were working with very demanding effects. Of course, you'd have to learn Houdini first :-)  

This looks like a job for BB. Way over my head, but a plug-in for poser would be a great addition.

"but a plug-in for poser would be a great addition."

To What end??
What DW is releasing is Open VDB C++ libraries which allows animators to more easily create “volumetric” effects, such as smoke and other amorphous materials.

This will make it even easier for apps like SideFX Houdini to render huge Volumetric animated effects like the ones seen in big VFX films like "2012".

99% percent of the poser base renders stills

not hi-def VFX  animated shots that would like be sent out as  layered EXRs from Renderman or some other pro pipeline engine
( ie NOT firefly).

Cheers

Hyperbolic advection of narrow-band level sets?

Sorry, I only work in Hyperbolic advection of WIDE-band level sets.

Yeah.

Quote - "but a plug-in for poser would be a great addition."

To What end??
What DW is releasing is Open VDB C++ libraries which allows animators to more easily create “volumetric” effects, such as smoke and other amorphous materials.

This will make it even easier for apps like SideFX Houdini to render huge Volumetric animated effects like the ones seen in big VFX films like "2012".

99% percent of the poser base renders stills

not hi-def VFX  animated shots that would like be sent out as  layered EXRs from Renderman or some other pro pipeline engine
( ie NOT firefly).

Cheers

Maybe something SM themselves can utilise when they rewrite Firefly with industry leading volumetrics ;-)

I think the Mozilla license the library has been released under would accommodate such a use?

"Maybe something SM themselves can utilise when they rewrite Firefly with industry leading volumetrics ;-)

I think the Mozilla license the library has been released under would accommodate such a use?
"

Its does not matter  how free or open source the license is sir.

Without and an industry standard animated  behavourial particle system like the one in Autodesk softimage etc etc. to use these shader libraries trying to "port them over" to poser is a pointless exercise me thinks.

Many in this community strongly dislike posers current shader system  for still renders and SM has FAILED to even improve the the Vestigial &broken FK /IK system for Character animation.

LOL Focus on practical /realistic features.

IMHO people here need to stop acting like Dogs chasing every shiny car they see with no idea what they would do with one or what the  car was even designed to do.

Cheers

I'm not sure how, entirely, serious I was being in my previous post... sorry...

Of course, you're right Wolf. The priority for SM should be sorting out the current areas where users complain of shortcomings, before bolting on more stuff.

That said, if dealing with the points you mention around Firefly and the shader set up system of the advanced material room was to involve a deep level revision of the code base there, at some point, you never know... it could open up scope for at least laying the groundwork for integrating a library such as this one?

I personally don't imagine any such major overhaul is happening any time soon though... and I'd probably rather see the apparent, current approach of incremental, sensible revision continue for now too... in the direction of addressing the issues you mention... if that is possible, than see any more radical approach, I guess.

Still, interesting news about this library being open sourced... and I really must take a closer look at the personal learning edition of Houdini at some point.

*"… it could open up scope for at least laying the groundwork for integrating a library such as this one?"*That's very true. In this case though, it sounds like they're talking about something to help vfx people who are hitting the wall with probably pretty heavy duty stuff. It's kinda like Cray open sourcing a parallel processing library for computational fluid dynamics and a Windows 95 user thinking 'wow, maybe Windows 98 will support that!' OK maybe not that bad :-) Blender's probably a much better target for something like this. We probably could stand a better Poser to Blender pipeline. People want to do it all in Poser though …

Yeah, I think you're right there lmckenzie... establishing a solid Poser to Blender pipeline would likely be the best bet eh?

I do wonder to what extent the move towards open sourcing such libraries is inspired by these studios seeing Blender develop and wishing to feed that open source project, and anything similar?

Thay have info & you tube Videos about making "Sintel".

For Blender to make the short video "Sintel".A lot of effort and team work.

CGI takes a long time to model,map,texture ,rig ,animate .getting a CGI character to talk "a lot of fun" etc etc.

Poser,DAZ, is fast. user friendly.Blender is not ,that's why it's free.

Well, some version of DS has always been free. add in all the things people keep wanting to poser and I'm not sure how fast or user friendly it would be - not to mention probably being more expensive. Part of Blender's complexity is down to it being able to do a lot more than Poser/DS - that and some design choices that like being keyboard centric - though I hear that's changed.

"I do wonder to what extent the move towards open sourcing such libraries is inspired by these studios seeing Blender develop and wishing to feed that open source project,

Doubtful
BTW DW is not doing anything new or particularly innovative here
ILM, Disney and Sony have been doing this sort of thing for Many years
Animators are not the ones who are actually making volumetric effects on films. This looks like dev lib, so only R&D dept. and developers will be using it anyway.

Cheers

Quote - Well, some version of DS has always been free. add in all the things people keep wanting to poser and I'm not sure how fast or user friendly it would be - not to mention probably being more expensive. Part of Blender's complexity is down to it being able to do a lot more than Poser/DS - that and some design choices that like being keyboard centric - though I hear that's changed.

C4D would be complicated n slow compared to Poser.

How fast you want to go ?
How much $$$ You got ?

$3700.00 - C4D is slick n fast

Free - Blender is cumbersome n slow