Roadmap for the maya plugin

[Refracty]

Hi Kai,
good improvements.
Will the new Maya plugin support phoenix FD volumetrics?

[oshosamiry]

Release date?
Release date?
Release date?

[calus]

Release date?
Release date?
Release date?

maybe you have missed this ?

Roadmap

Preview release v3 - this month (june (2016))
- Have to add a medium node for volumes (looking at ramp attributes there), so a release makes sense and you can play with it.
- uses old material nodes and geometry mechanism (not node based) (which I want to replace for the production release)
- Baking camera maybe

Production release v3 - next month (july (2016))
- Baking camera
- volumes fully integrated with maya fluids
- geometry (collector) nodes for different geometry types, replacing old mechanism for sending geometry to octane
- (so materials are still edited in hypershade
(workflow okay? Could have a nodegraph as in standalone, with everything connected there!?)
but material assignment workflow [right click menu on mesh in viewport] works with hypershade)
- Maya 2016.5 SDK integration

[k.a.schubert]

Hi,

some update.

Indeed I need to override the AE***template Mel procedures. Latest the standard UI for an MRampAttribute is utterly useless:

Standard UI:

Custom UI is better:

You can see all new nodes here in their category "Octane NG" as well.

Autodesk support says as well its the standard way, and every plugin has to do it.

So finishing the last quirks with that.
Then all AE**templates for all the new nodes are overwritten, so they have the same structure.
Since I now (few fixes away) have reusable Mel scripts building the UI of all nodes and don't hardcode attribute names in Mel anymore,
it will be less error prone (especially when standalone changes attribute names in a new version) and quicker for me to introduce new nodes.

Solved the problem of unconnected nodes floating arround freely in the outliner with a new node type...Lost & Found:

So working for alpha release next week.
Afterwards going to redo the geometry transfer from maya to octane with the planned "geometry collector nodes".

@Refracty

The volumes use mayas own fluid system for starters, but I want to connect to phoenix FD and FumeFX nodes as well.
Refactoring existing parts of the plugin (geometry collector nodes) has a higher priority though, even when its less fun for me.

Best,
Kai

[oshosamiry]

@k.a.schubert

thank you.

[calus]

Hi Kai and thanks for the progress update,

About the node names, is there a reason that they all have the "node" suffix added ?
e.g : why not call the render target node "renderTarget" like in standalone, instead of "renderTargetNode" ?

Solved the problem of unconnected nodes floating arround freely in the outliner with a new node type...Lost & Found:

not sure about that, but I don't understand how this work, we'll see next week

The volumes use mayas own fluid system for starters, but I want to connect thoo penix FD and FumeFX nodes as well.
Refactoring existing parts of the plugin (geometry collector nodes) has a higher priority though, even when its less fun for me.

Also in my opinion, another priority before supporting external plugins, is to support first Internal Maya features like Bifrost Aero.

[Refracty]

Good to know that it is no rocket science to make it work with PhoenixFD.
I understand that the native Maya plugins have priority though.
We are looking forward to receive the first alpha release
Thanks for updating us more frequent now and the collaboration with us (users).

[QuinceHungaryKft]

By the way Gradient Nodes.

I've experienced that if one of the node colour values are absolute black (HSV: x,x,0) then after closing and reloading the scene, that node colour value will not show anymore.


Looking forward to the update!

[k.a.schubert]

@ QuinceHungaryKft

By the way Gradient Nodes.

I've experienced that if one of the node colour values are absolute black (HSV: x,x,0) then after closing and reloading the scene, that node colour value will not show anymore.


Looking forward to the update!

Was this in standalone?
What do you mean by "that node colour value will not show anymore"?

You mean all the nodes color field were black after loading?

Best explained with screenshots!

@Refracty

Well if they expose resolution, dimension and the actual voxel data somehow thats all the plugin sends to octane for mayas own fluids.

@Calus

Node names: You're right, looks a bit odd. Happened due to (too) quick usage of the renaming function in Visual Studio, but just fixed it.

The Lost&Found node is a first idea & implementation how you can keep every node connected to rendertarget, so one click gives you the whole nodegraph.

Yep Bifrost is another volume framework to integrate with. So many... volume effects seem to be a thing...



Best,
Kai

[calus]

The Lost&Found node is a first idea & implementation how you can keep every node connected to rendertarget, so one click gives you the whole nodegraph.

I see,
the node editor display nodes based on selection and connected nodes,
so you keep a connection for all octane nodes to display all of them in one click.

I'm concerned by the number of nodes tab displayed in the attribute editor with this system.
And I'm not sure we really need this, because the same can be done with a one line mel script, I think.

Also this may be redundant with the (new)hypershade UI:
In hypershade we can see every shading nodes by categories and just drag and drop them in the Attached Node Editor as we need them,
and optionally we can add an octane "show filter" to only see octane nodes in the categories.

Anyway just guessing here, maybe when I 'll try the lost&found node I won't be able to live without it anymore