Uploaded December 2016 | Updated September 2026, 7 hours ago
This video shows a very fast volume shader for Blender in action and briefly explains its fundamentals. The shader consists of multiple ideas for optimization but the most important one is the complete avoidance of the Volume Scatter node. That node produces a lot of image noise which takes many samples to clear up and thus a lot of render time. This optimized shader, however, fakes all visible lighting only by using Emission and Volume Absorption nodes, which enables one to render almost noise-free images even by using just one sample per pixel. The simulation is done with the smoke simulator and doesn't use additional wavelet levels, instead artificial detail is generated by animated 3D noise to save simulation time and memory.
A warm thanks goes out to Martin Felke for his idea of using smoke heat to fake scattered light.
Basic example file: pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=44876
kostackstudio.de
This video shows a very fast volume shader for Blender in action and briefly explains its fundamentals. The shader consists of multiple ideas for optimization but the most important one is the complete avoidance of the Volume Scatter node. That node produces a lot of image noise which takes many samples to clear up and thus a lot of render time. This optimized shader, however, fakes all visible lighting only by using Emission and Volume Absorption nodes, which enables one to render almost noise-free images even by using just one sample per pixel. The simulation is done with the smoke simulator and doesn't use additional wavelet levels, instead artificial detail is generated by animated 3D noise to save simulation time and memory.
A warm thanks goes out to Martin Felke for his idea of using smoke heat to fake scattered light.
Basic example file: pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=44876
kostackstudio.de
