Maya instanced geometry not obeying visiblity

[jangwee]

Hi
I've got a scene with animated trees they are instanced throughout scene.
All instanced geometry seems to ignore the visibility attribute of their transform. So even though the object is hidden in the maya scene it will still render if the original instance is visible.
This is true in reverse also, so if original is hidden and all other instances are visible they won't render as they will be exact instance of original.

This is troublesome if you have many instances of an animated object thoughout scene because you can't use animated visiblity to hide objects when needed.

Anyone else encounter this problem??

[JimStar]

Hi
I've got a scene with animated trees they are instanced throughout scene.
All instanced geometry seems to ignore the visibility attribute of their transform. So even though the object is hidden in the maya scene it will still render if the original instance is visible.

I will check it, thanks for report.

This is true in reverse also, so if original is hidden and all other instances are visible they won't render as they will be exact instance of original.

This is normal behavior, as if the object is hidden - all it's transforms are instancing the hidden object, so they show nothing. E.g. Maya software renderer works the same way.

[TBFX]

All instanced geometry seems to ignore the visibility attribute of their transform. So even though the object is hidden in the maya scene it will still render if the original instance is visible.
This is true in reverse also, so if original is hidden and all other instances are visible they won't render as they will be exact instance of original.

Yes I have confirmed this also.

This is normal behavior, as if the object is hidden - all it's transforms are instancing the hidden object, so they show nothing. E.g. Maya software renderer works the same way.

JimStar, It should work if you are setting visibility on the transform nodes and not the shape nodes. I have just checked and confirmed that if you hide the original object using it's transform nodes visibility then all instances still render in Maya Software and likewise you can also hide individual instances.
This already works in octane with particle instances where you can hide the originals and only the instances render (which is just as well as particle instanced objects need to be at origin and so almost always need to be invisible.) These issues only seem to be with manually instanced geometry.

T.

[JimStar]

This is normal behavior, as if the object is hidden - all it's transforms are instancing the hidden object, so they show nothing. E.g. Maya software renderer works the same way.

JimStar, It should work if you are setting visibility on the transform nodes and not the shape nodes. I have just checked and confirmed that if you hide the original object using it's transform nodes visibility then all instances still render in Maya Software and likewise you can also hide individual instances.
This already works in octane with particle instances where you can hide the originals and only the instances render (which is just as well as particle instanced objects need to be at origin and so almost always need to be invisible.) These issues only seem to be with manually instanced geometry.

Maya Software renderer, all transforms visibility is enabled:

Shape visibility is enabled:

Shape visibility is disabled:

[TBFX]

Sorry my explanation was not clear. Yes that is what happens if you set visibility using the shape node but if you leave the shape nodes visibility set to 1 and turn of the visibility on the transform node then the instances should be visible (and are in Maya Software and the viewport) but are not in Octane. Also if you set visibility off on the transform node of any individual instance it should be hidden in the render.

T.

[JimStar]

Sorry my explanation was not clear.

I can't understand what you mean exactly.

if you leave the shape nodes visibility set to 1

and turn of the visibility on the transform node

then the instances should be visible (and are in Maya Software and the viewport)

As you see on these screenshots - hidden transforms are not visible neither in the viewport nor in Maya Software renderer, even if the mesh shape is set as visible.

but are not in Octane.

Also if you set visibility off on the transform node of any individual instance it should be hidden in the render.

This contradicts with the previos clause - as yes, it should be hidden, it was exactly the complain here... And the plugin renders it...

[TBFX]

Yes you have everything right but I think you have not tried one case.

1. Create a poly sphere in a new scene.
2. Copy it as instance as many times as you like.
3. Hide the original sphere using the it's transform node, leaving it's shape node visible.
all the instances should still be visible in the viewport.

4. Now try to render the scene in octane - should get the following error
Warning: Octane: no geometry present in scene! //
// Error: Octane: Error mesh export. Octane render stopped.

5. Try to render the scene in Maya Software and it will render as it appears in the viewport.

T.

[JimStar]

TBFX
What you see on my screenshots - all these spheres were copied exactly as instances. So the spheres in my test scene - are instances of only one mesh shape object.

1.png (4.84 KiB) Viewed 7272 times

Perhaps there is some discrepancy in the terminology and you mean something else when saying "instances"?..

[TBFX]

No discrepancy.
Here is a scene, just like yours. Render it in Maya software and then try to render it in Octane with the visibility how I have it set.

T.

[JimStar]

No discrepancy.
Here is a scene, just like yours. Render it in Maya software and then try to render it in Octane with the visibility how I have it set.

It's because you disabled always the visibility of the first instance of the object, and I played with all but first.

Yes, I see that the first inctance's visibility affects the visibility of all other instnaces. It's different issue, I will create the separate ticket for it.
Thank you for report!