Volume Shaders Using Autovolume

mental ray offers a volume tracking mode called autovolume. In this mode, mental ray keeps track of which volumes a ray is in, manages nested volumes, keeps track of which volumes the camera is in, and takes over inside/outside decisions. This allows scenes with overlapping volumes such as light cones from street lights, even if the camera moves through the light cones in an animation. With mental ray 2.x, sophisticated volume shaders would be required for handling this correctly.

In autovolume mode, the volume shader attached to the camera controls the volume of the world outside all other object volumes, and necessarily the volume that the camera is in. Volume shader declarations may specify a volume level greater than zero that defines the properties of the volume: volumes at higher levels displace volumes at lower levels, and volumes at equal levels mix. The default level is 0. Mixing means that if a ray travels through such a volume, all volume shaders at the highest level are called, and all lower levels are ignored. Levels are defined in the shader declaration (see page shaderdecl):

     declare shader
         color "volume_shader_name" (...)
         volume level 1
     end declare

Each volume shader has the option of terminating the chain of mixed volume shaders scheduled for execution. For example, a volume shader that creates a swirl of particles may allow other shaders to be called to add their particles, but a plain fog shader might terminate the list to prevent the fog to be twice as dense where two fog volumes intersect.

To activate autovolume mode, the following options are required:

volume on

to turn on volume shading (this is the default),

autovolume on

to switch to autovolume shading, and

shadow segments

because shadow segments are required to keep track of shadow rays passing through volumes.

scanline off

for mental ray 3.2 and earlier, because scanline intersections were not reliable.

It is not necessary to turn on raytracing. After activating autovolume, old volume shaders can still be used. However, state→volume and state→refraction_volume are ignored by mental ray since inside/outside determination is now done internally. Shaders can detect autovolume mode by checking state→options→autovolume.

To help the shader writer merge results of individual volume shaders called on a ray, mental ray 3.x provides functions for limited communication between these shaders:

mi_volume_num_shaders returns the total number of shaders that mental ray is going call for this ray segment.

mi_volume_cur_shader returns the relative index of the current shader, ranging from 0 to mi_volume_num_shaders − 1.

mi_volume_tags returns a const pointer to an array of volume shader tags that mental ray calls for this ray segment.

mi_volume_user_color returns the pointer to a user-defined color which can be used to accumulate shader results. mental ray does not touch this value.

When mental ray has collected all the shaders to call for a given volume, there are three principally different ways how results of individual volume shaders can be combined:

By user color: the first shader (where mi_volume_cur_shader returns 0) initializes the user color. All remaining shaders contribute their results by modifying the user color. The last shader (where mi_volume_cur_shader returns mi_volume_num_shaders - 1) returns the user color in its result argument.
By tag array: the first shader may obtain the tag array and uses mi_call_shader to carry out volume shading in the desired way. It sets the final result in its result argument, and returns (miBoolean)2 to indicate that volume shading has been completed. mental ray will then not call the remaining shaders in the list for the current ray segment.
By state: all mixed volume shaders called for a given ray segment are supplied the same state which can be used to exchange information, for example using state→user. This method is not recommended because it assumes that all shaders were designed to cooperate in this way.

In any case, all volume shaders called for the volume will operate on the same result pointer.

Sometimes, not all volumes through which a ray is traveling will contribute significantly to the final result. Consider a bubble of carbon dioxide inside a glass of beer. As the ray passes through the bubble, both shaders, CO₂ and beer, will be called (since the bubble is inside the beer), but the beer is not going to contribute to the current ray since the bubble is completely filled with CO₂.

Here is an example with two volume shaders. The attenuating_volume volume shader at level 1 which attenuates a ray according to the distance it has traveled through the volume. If two such volumes intersect, the effect is accumulating. see how the user color is used for that purpose. The luminescent_volume volume shader at level 2 brightens the current ray. The effect is non-accumulating, so the shader return (miBoolean)2 to prevent mental ray from continuing to follow the shader list.

    struct lv {
        miScalar        emission;
        miColor         color;
    };

    DLLEXPORT miBoolean luminescent_volume(
        miColor         *result,
        miState         *state,
        struct lv       *parms)
    {
        miScalar        factor;
        miColor         *volcolor;

        factor   = *mi_eval_scalar(&parms->emission) * state->dist;
        volcolor =  mi_eval_color (&parms->color);
        result->r += factor * volcolor->r;
        result->g += factor * volcolor->g;
        result->b += factor * volcolor->b;

        return((miBoolean)2);           /* no more calls in chain */
    }


    struct av {
        miScalar        extinction;
        miColor         color;
    };

    DLLEXPORT miBoolean attenuating_volume(
        miColor         *result,
        miState         *state,
        struct av       *parms)
    {
        miScalar        factor;
        miColor         *volcolor, *usercolor;

        factor    = *mi_eval_scalar(&parms->extinction) * state->dist;
        volcolor  =  mi_eval_color (&parms->color);
        userColor =  mi_volume_user_color(state);

        if (mi_volume_cur_shader(state) == 0) {
                usercolor->r = result->r - factor*volcolor->r;
                usercolor->g = result->g - factor*volcolor->g;
                usercolor->b = result->b - factor*volcolor->b;
        } else {
                usercolor->r -= factor * volcolor->r;
                usercolor->g -= factor * volcolor->g;
                usercolor->b -= factor * volcolor->b;
        }
        if (mi_volume_cur_shader(state) == mi_volume_num_shaders(state)-1)
                *result = *usercolor;

        return(miTRUE);
    }