Random Color Node to different Meshes

[p3taoctane]

I think I know the answer to this question but ....

Can I assign a random color texture node to a bunch of different mesh nodes. Not instances, not particles, not hair!.

I other words I duplicated a mesh a bunch of times and want to assign different colors to all the meshes?

Thanks

Peter

Sorry if this has been addressed but I only saw it working on scatter nodes in the stanadalone etc.

[BK]

Can I assign a random color texture node to a bunch of different mesh nodes.

hi Peter,

yes, you can assign random color texture using the virtual material. This is just a workaround and we are investigating to improve the workflow something similar with other Octane plugins.

[calus]

Can I assign a random color texture node to a bunch of different mesh nodes. Not instances, not particles, not hair!.
I other words I duplicated a mesh a bunch of times and want to assign different colors to all the meshes?

Yes !!! random color texture node now works for non instance mesh in Octane Core

But as usual to make it work in the maya plugin it's very non-intuitive:
I made a tutorial for this:
viewtopic.php?f=126&t=60744

[calus]

you can assign random color texture using the virtual material. This is just a workaround and we are investigating to improve the workflow something similar with other Octane plugins.

Hey Bikram, this is not how the Random Color node works, have a look here : viewtopic.php?f=126&t=60744

I can't understand what you wanted to achieve with your shading graph example,
it doesn't make sens, "virtual Material" can't help for this.

Also the "virtual Material" feature is buggy as hell and so badly implemented that it's useless.
Users should never use the "virtual Material" feature (should be removed),
there is some better and more handy tools for Maya to do the same thing (randomly assigning a material list):
https://www.highend3d.com/maya/script/r ... s-for-maya

[BK]

Hi Calus,

This is another great workaround. thanks

Like I said earlier, this is just a workaround until we figure out something. The random colour is definitely not a simple fix for Octane render for Maya, however, we have come up with a possible solution now and we will look into it as soon as possible.

Using Virtual material takes a little longer setting up than running script but the virtual material will work on any kind of objects, instanced/non-instanced. In my opinion, users have more controls and advantages using it. So, we do not think it's necessary to remove this feature at this moment. We will keep on posting the updates on the forum for everyone. Cheers

[calus]

This is another great workaround. thanks

No no, you don't understand, I'm not showing a workaround here,
this is how the Random Color texture node works with non instance meshes,
this is the way it works in standalone or in Maya plugin, no workaround is needed :
viewtopic.php?f=126&t=60744

Like I said earlier, this is just a workaround until we figure out something.

No this is not a workaround for what the user asked in the first post,
please read again :

I duplicated a mesh a bunch of times and want to assign different colors to all the meshes?

Bikram, with your "workaround", you need to create as much different materials and gradients as the numbers of meshes to achieve what is asked by @p3taoctane.
So what's the point ?

The random colour is definitely not a simple fix for Octane render for Maya, however, we have come up with a possible solution now and we will look into it as soon as possible.

So discouraging , It seems that neither JimStar or you understand at all the purpose and usage of the Random Color node...

I'm very afraid of what "possible solution" you are talking about,
the Random Color Node works as expected in Maya for instancers and regular non-instance meshes,
the only thing to fix is the Regular Maya Instance support, because it was badly implemented:

Regular Maya Instances using the same material, when converted to Octane must use the same Shader Map node, not one Shader Map node by instance !
That's all, this is a very simple bug to fix in the Maya plugin !!!!

@JimStar, please stop to ignore this bug and to waste your time on useless features like Virtual material,
I already explained what the bug is and how to fix it but you keep ignoring this bug since 4 years :
viewtopic.php?f=110&t=52976#p300696

Using Virtual material takes a little longer setting up than running script but the virtual material will work on any kind of objects, instanced/non-instanced. In my opinion, users have more controls and advantages using it. So, we do not think it's necessary to remove this feature at this moment.

The script I linked was just one example among lot of other ways,
but this tool has one major advantage over Virtual material, it just works !


Anyway users almost never need random assignment of predefined materials,
they need randomness at the material attributes level : exactly what the random color texture node is made for...

And it's so much more powerful, and controllable than Virtual material

- the randomness can be between predefined color/textures (Random Color as input of a non-interpolated gradient)
- or the randomness can have unlimited variation by blending the textures ( in an interpolated gradient)
- it's fast to setup and control: only one material to setup, gradient enable easy control of the contribution for each color/texture independently.
- the randomness distribution has 65535 controllable variation (Seed attribute) against 0 controllable variation* for Virtual material

*the Random Seed variation for Virtual Material is the more absurd implementation ever:
either the Seed is changing EVERY FRAME but who would need such a feature : zero control on a stroboscopic animation !!!???
or the Seed is varying with the weight of contribution of the virtual materials so both are uncontrollable ,
Oh I almost forgot, the Seed is also varying depending on which slave it's rendered


Compared to the Random Color node workflow, Virtual material is just an awful unusable useless broken feature, it must be deprecated and removed.
Or prove me wrong by sharing at least one Maya scene where "Virtual material" is useful and works as expected !

[BK]

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for your kind comments and suggestion.

Here's a tutorial link to randomize color on duplicate and instanced objects using Virtual Material.
viewtopic.php?f=126&t=60847

I hope everyone will find the information useful

[calus]

Here's a tutorial link to randomize color on duplicate and instanced objects using Virtual Material.

Bikram, this is not what your example scene is doing:
Virtual Material doesn't randomize color that's not true, Virtual Material only assign randomly a list of predefined Materials.

Look at your scene, you only have 4 color variations at the same time, and to do that you had to setup 6 Materials using 6 different gradient nodes.
The supposed color randomization is only coming from you setting up by hand 6 different gradient node !!
This has nothing to do with color randomization.
If you have 1000 objects and want to have 1 different color for each object, with your workflow, users need to setup 1000 materials using 1000 different gradients by hand
this is not a workaround, this is completely useless...
Do you understand the problem ?

On top of that there is absolutely zero advantage on using virtual materials here, apart making the scene unusable:
I already explained in previous post that depending on what computer is rendered the scene, the material distribution randomness is not the same !!
I have a different render result than you for your example scene !!!!
viewtopic.php?f=126&t=60847#p311311
Virtual Material is not usable in a production environment, you get unpredictable result with network rendering...

Virtual Material was only implemented because regular Maya Instances doesn't work as expected with the Random Color Node,
instead of fixing the bug !!!!
What a stupid decision, for regular instances we are stuck with this useless feature since 3 or 4 years,
because for some reason JimStar refuse to even try to fix the bug in his faulty instance implementation

Using only one simple material setup with a Random Color Node you can achieve a lot faster all what Virtual Material can do, and a lot more,
but without the bugs and with all needed controls.
I'm desperate here, I can't believe I'm not listened at all... and that a broken useless JimStar personnal feature is still preferred over using perfectly working Octane Core's features.
Again, please fix the Maya Instance bug and remove this useless Virtual Material feature