Alembic mesh of a houdini fluid sim looks different in viewport than in renders

Development Cinematics & Media
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1

Hello Unreal!

I have a beautiful alembic mesh made from a Houdini flipsim that looks good in my viewport here:

pepsi cinematic viewport
pepsi cinematic viewport765×498 30.8 KB

But what renders, both out of the queue and the deprecated renderer is this:

pepsi render
pepsi render729×409 25.9 KB

As you can see, it looks like the material is not allowing light from the sun and sky to pass through it.

What’s more is that when the camera animates, there is a hard edge that defines where light passes through the material and where it does not, almost exactly how a planar reflection would work:

pepsi clipping
pepsi clipping1328×749 54.9 KB

but i really dont think it’s a planar reflection issue because it looks great in the viewport.

What are your thoughts? I could really use some help troubleshooting this.

Thanks for taking a look!

2

What import options you selected?
Are you using RayTracing translucency or raster?
Do you have multiple levels streamed, so lights setup might mix.
More info on material, import options and etc would be good to troubleshoot.

1 Like
3

thanks for the reply! to answer your questions

I’m not sure what import settings were used, though I’m curious which settings you think might produce this behavior. What do you think?

this is a geo cached mesh imported as an alembic from a flipsim in houdini.

the material is M_Glass_CleanMaster with some simple scalar modifications to properties.

i am not using ray tracing.

any ideas?

Thanks again for your time

4

make a reflection probe, put a texture into it, make it big enough to cover your liquid, and build reflection captures in the map.

if you’re in ‘play’ mode simulate or selected viewport, does it turn black?

5

@m1sterv1sual thanks again for the reply.

im not sure why this is marked as solved, it isn’t solved. to answer your question I’m not using ray tracing, so i guess it’s a raster.

the material is a glass shader from the start up content, i believe.

can you think of why the light from the light from the ultra dynamic sky sun isn’t transmissing through the material in the render while it does in play and editor mode?

thanks again.