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Hi Jim,

I have a problem with the View-port again on Maya 2017 if I'm using IPR soon I select the camera and I try to access on the attribute editor the options is gone after I change the tab and come back after at attribute editor all options getting back.

Is something happen only with Octane plug load.

So far all other stuffs are fine for me Great job!

Best,
JO

Vrr wrote:Here's a FBX i just put it on a external hard drive but haven't tried desktop, import the file and Hit the "Convert Maya Materials to Octane" in Maya 2017 and all dashes are left out..

WS_Wall.rar

I tested your Fbx, and indeed I was able to reproduce your problem(hardly).
So if I import the FBX and convert immediatly the shader to Octane, Pathes are wrong.
But if I import the FBX, then save the scene, close the scene, open the scene, convert shaders to Octane, then no problem.

Aparently you also have the problem happening with already saved old scenes,
but as the problem can be reproduced importing your sample FBX, this should help devellopers to diagnose the issue.

Hi Guys,

One other question "octaneRandomColorTexture" should work with hairs or maya instances? for me is working only with particles instances?
I guess is normal but should not working in the same way cause they are all instances for Octane Standalone?

For example if I want use in hair the "octaneWTexture" for a variation on color with botton and tip and use a "colorcorrect" node and add "octaneRandomColorTexture" into the brightness to get some variation should work???

Any advise?

Best,
JO

Jolbertoquini wrote:Hi Guys,

One other question "octaneRandomColorTexture" should work with hairs or maya instances? for me is working only with particles instances?
I guess is normal but should not working in the same way cause they are all instances for Octane Standalone?

For example if I want use in hair the "octaneWTexture" for a variation on color with botton and tip and use a "colorcorrect" node and add "octaneRandomColorTexture" into the brightness to get some variation should work???

Any advise?

Well this is an Octane core limitation, the RandomColor node only works for instances all referenced in the same Octane Scatter node.
In the maya plugin, the maya instancer is converted to one Scatter node,
and regular instances are converted to separate transform nodes referencing the same geometry.
(well a Scatter node is used but one for each instance, this is like using a Placement node)

This is implemented in Maya the way it must be, because Maya regular instances can have different materials, not the instancer.
I guess an option could be added to export regular instances as an instancer but I think it's not easy,
I have noticed in the Maya plugin there's one way and only one to do each things,
so what your asking might mean refactoring the Octane plugin geometry converter/exporter.
In the other hand you can just convert in Maya your regular instances to an instancer.

Octane Hairs are not instances, but individual curves, so they can't use the randomColorNode.
But you can use Maya builtin tools to have the exact same result,
adding an empty texture in the material, maya color information are baked to this buffer/temp texture.



In my opinion there is a way more important issue to solve for hair:
The plugin should by default sample the underlying mesh UV and assign it to Hair,
instead of using random UV based on hair ID.
This is the number one feature used for rendering fur or hairs, and it's not supported by the Maya plugin....

Maya colors can't be used for that because :
- regular paintFX don't sample the mesh UV,
- and pfx nHair sample the mesh UV but only per clump/follicle,
so if you have more than one hair in one clump it doesn't work at all, the nHairs use the clump Uvspace instead of using the mesh UV space.
So it's not practical you just can't use one follicle for each hair, Maya explode.

Or at least we should have a way to access each Octane Hair UV component and set them ourselves,
sampling mesh UV is easy in Maya....

calus wrote: In the other hand you can just convert in Maya your regular instances to an instancer.

Hi Calus

Thanks for the imput! I'm confuse with something so when you say instancer you mean from the particles Instances?
I know how to do it Instancer to regular instance but the oposite I don't have any Idea do you have any script to share with us please hehehe

I guess I look at autodesk maya docs.

Best
JO

I don't think/remember of an easy way to convert instance to particle instancer,
but it should not be too hard to script, basicaly emit one particle at each instance world position, write the rotation attribute and axes, and attache an instancer.

I don't remember if we can write directly in the instancer without particles, I'll look at it when I have more time.

Jolbertoquini wrote:One other question "octaneRandomColorTexture" should work with hairs or maya instances? for me is working only with particles instances?

This is the "Virtual material" feature was made for in Maya plugin a long time ago. You have a lot more flexibility, changing everything you want to be pseudo-random (random inside a set of pre-defined materials), not just a color (e.g. roughness or even type of material). To make use of Maya's native assigned hair colors - you need to properly set up the Octane material in hair's transform. Because the only way for Octane to make use of Maya's colors is to bake them "on the fly" into the texture - you need to set up a material with Octane image textures connected to desired plugs (e.g. to "Diffuse"), and you need to add the chosen material's image textures which you want to be baked on the fly by Maya's hair colors - to the "Image textures list" below the material field.

calus wrote:

Vrr wrote:Here's a FBX i just put it on a external hard drive but haven't tried desktop, import the file and Hit the "Convert Maya Materials to Octane" in Maya 2017 and all dashes are left out..

WS_Wall.rar

I tested your Fbx, and indeed I was able to reproduce your problem(hardly).
Thanks! you right what i needed to do was close Maya the open the same scene again then it works correctly also if you import more than one scene Octane renders black but close and open Maya fix that.

JimStar wrote:

Jolbertoquini wrote:One other question "octaneRandomColorTexture" should work with hairs or maya instances? for me is working only with particles instances?

This is the "Virtual material" feature was made for in Maya plugin a long time ago. You have a lot more flexibility, changing everything you want to be pseudo-random (random inside a set of pre-defined materials), not just a color (e.g. roughness or even type of material).

@JimStar
The randomColor node is very different of the virtual material,
with only one node you can create almost infinite variation in a material, or using it as the blend factor of a mix materials to create infinite materials.

The use-case for the virtual material is very very rare, so rare I never found a way to use it in production in five years.
And it's really not handy to use.
For example if you want 100 variations of shader you have to define 100 different materials by hand
Also the UI to link the virtual material is very buggy, the linking fail most of the time or doesn't refresh,
(better to link them in the node editor, it works flawlessly),
and the weigth attribute is broken or very mysterious.

One usage would be if I had a huge number of objects or instances, for example for Christmas tinsel lights or vegetation leaves,
for which I woud need to assign randomly a fix list of specific shaders.
But for this I would use a script to assign randomly the shaders and still have some control anyway.

@Jo
More I think about it and more I think it would be amazingly usefull if the randomColor node could work with any kind of geometry using the same material, as you were asking.
But this is to be asked at standalone team to implement this in Octane core. (don't get too much hope, if it was easy it would already be implemented).
I hope OSL will bring this kind of feature.

JimStar wrote:

Jolbertoquini wrote:One other question "octaneRandomColorTexture" should work with hairs or maya instances? for me is working only with particles instances?

This is the "Virtual material" feature was made for in Maya plugin a long time ago. You have a lot more flexibility, changing everything you want to be pseudo-random (random inside a set of pre-defined materials), not just a color (e.g. roughness or even type of material).

1.png

To make use of Maya's native assigned hair colors - you need to properly set up the Octane material in hair's transform. Because the only way for Octane to make use of Maya's colors is to bake them "on the fly" into the texture - you need to set up a material with Octane image textures connected to desired plugs (e.g. to "Diffuse"), and you need to add the chosen material's image textures which you want to be baked on the fly by Maya's hair colors - to the "Image textures list" below the material field.

2.png

Hi Jim,

Also virtual material doesn't work when we do batch render they are change shaders on each frame This is the reason i'm not using can we have a fix for that! I already told before.This happening because in each machine the result are different. so is flicker on the end result

Best,
JO