"… 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 :-)  

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