Canon 5D Mk II - Maya to Indigo

[CTZn]

That's the least I can do Lemo.

I like that skin. Never really tried that kind of stuff, but talking about "a very nice OS to send a picture of yer face all over the world" would be OT. Sometimes I'm wondering if that's not an Home version I bought but no it says otherwise on loading

[CTZn]

By the way, instead of duplicating the fractal texture you can plug it into various ramp textures as i described it to $oup by the end of the post.

That's to save the hassle to tweak n textures for consistency. Ramp textures will sort of act as instancers for the fractal texture. Once you've set one, you can save its presets in order to apply them to the further instancing ramps you'll need.

edit: materials assignements are hardcoded into the obj file, so you'll have to effectively duplicate the material in your case. I can see the fix but that will be some work (time) for this alone.

Is this the item you want me to give the highest priority to fix ? Nevermind the question if it is confusing you.

[Lemo]

That's really not a priority, I'm now sure that file textures are better for this project anyway
Something I would prefer is a texture feedback on the Indigo shader for example
EDIT: I could use a phong, but every try I did gave me a lambert-looking material at render
Maybe because I can't specify the ior or exponent value in the attributes of the maya-phong?

What is that "OT" operating system in your previous message?

[Lemo]

I'm trying to make a material for a little screen on the lens, and while it looks fine in the view, I'm not going anywhere in the render
As you can see in the reference, it's a piece of glass with black textured borders.
I tried a layered shader without much success, and with a transmittance layer on a specular I get the following:
// Error: Textures can not be used to define absorbtion (indigoShader3)

I'm not sure this is a maya related issue as I never used this kind of material in maxigo, but in both case, any suggestion would be much appreciated

[CTZn]

About the error: disconnect the texture the indigoShader may have in its color channel. The indigoShader itself will run into changes to avoid totally this confusing issue and akin. You shouldn't run into when using the Indigo Editor though, it makes things obvious. I'm realizing how much it is belittled and probably disliked and I take this on me.

Ok for your needs we'll have to use three materials and two objects because it is not possible to blend specular and null together.

One object will be the glass pane. We will model this small pane with thickness, from a cube. It will use a specular material with a mapped transmittance layer for the transparent mask. UVs placement will play a role here.

The second object will be a single plane layed over for the labels and drawings, with a clipped phong applied. Transparency and abedo at least should be connected to textures, and the phong itself will be plugged as the single entry of a layeredShader for a null mix. The geometry will have in fact this last shader applied, not the phong. Plugging an indigo compatible material into a layered shader is the only way currently available to use its transparency. If you are experiencing troubles tell me and use Maya's lambert and phong instead when applicable.

Edit: of course you can use only the cube transmittance if you can cope with a transparent red for labels.

1. create a cube and size it accordingly.

2. plug the texture representing the frame alone as transmittance layer. Black would be opaque so you'll need a dark grey.

3. copy the place2dTexture AE sheet or freeze the AE on it, we'll need to do some tweaks while the cube will be selected.

4. In a row, select the mesh, open the UV Texture Editor for visual control and change the texture placement so that at the end, only the top face of the cube will be mapped. Here are the supposed settings to tweak in the place2dTexture on a default cube:

coverage UV: 0.25 0.25
translate frame: 0.375 0.250

The result should be similar to the linked image. The five other faces are mapless.


For the labels:

1. duplicate/extract the top face of the cube or create a plane from scratch

2. position it over the masked face.

Important note: the distance between the two surfaces must be above 0.2 millimeter. Let me know if that's not enough.

3. create a phong, a layeredShader.

4. plug the phong into the layeredShader. Assign the layeredShader to the plane.

Select the layeredShhader and open the Indigo Editor. The materials transparencies are listed there !

5. set the labels mask as transparency for the phong. As a consequence of clipping, the color map could be done by a kid You can blur and noise the clip map for use as bump.

Here are the main lines, hope it helps.

[Lemo]

Wow thanks for the detailed explanation!

The indigoShader itself will run into changes

That seems to do the same thing though whether I connect it to "Color" in the AE, or "Transparence color" in the IE

You shouldn't run into when using the Indigo Editor though

Well I like to use it for camera settings for example, but sometimes maya's AE is nice to have less floating windows around...
I noticed though that the IndigoShader has all the properties available in AE for phong, while for specular I can't access IOR and other stuff in there ?

So concerning that screen material, your ideas worked great for the frame
However this duplicate plane technique for the labels sounds quite biased for an unbiased renderer, and I think I'll try some other ways around till it works without altering the modeling

[Lemo]

Alleluia!

I dunno what I had wrong with my previous tests, but layered shader actually works
No need for transmittance for this one apparently, sorry for the wrong suggestion

Btw is it just me or Indigo can't handle dof in refractions?

I won't do horri-ball renders next time I promise

[CTZn]

That seems to do the same thing though whether I connect it to "Color" in the AE, or "Transparence color" in the IE

Eee... yes, that's the same attribute with a different name in each UI Still, the transmittance layer attribute has its slot right above in the IE. Transparency is jus tthe inverse of absorbtion, and it takes no texture (but a spectrumNode if you want).

Ah wait, I just bumped into an error on export saying similar things. The IE should have popped up with the message, click its button and retry export.

I noticed though that the IndigoShader has all the properties available in AE for phong, while for specular I can't access IOR and other stuff in there ?

It's part of the medium section. Specular and glossy transparent materials have in common this complex internal parameter wich holds their optical properties. Again the IE should clarify. Harmonization of labels should happen any soon.

So concerning that screen material, your ideas worked great for the frame
However this duplicate plane technique for the labels sounds quite biased for an unbiased renderer, and I think I'll try some other ways around till it works without altering the modeling

Something is coming to my mind, to the shelters everyone ! I tell you now and I will think about later

Seriously, using a similar technique than I described, you can put the frame in the down face of the cube, and a blend map on the top face. This way you should have a pane of glass with a frame below and paints over, like it is for real (crossing fingers on wood) !

Okay I tested this and it works, with reserves on transmitted light. Glass Acceleration looses its efficacity with blends it seems. Linked image uses bidir alone.

Glad you got blend to work ! Yes you need to use the transmittance layer for the frame or it will have to be opaque. It is semi transparent in my test render (though dark).

Horri-balls have this property to stretch the distances, I'm sure dof is here only that the ball has a much larger optical scope than the camera (if that's an explanation).

Hey wait, what are you insinuating ? You don't like my horrible tests !?



Yours are great so far.

Myself am pinned down in a minefield called matrices but I hope to comply in reasonable delays.

[CTZn]

here's the shading network I used.

[Lemo]

It's part of the medium section.

Yes but what about the ior?

Yes you need to use the transmittance layer for the frame or it will have to be opaque.

That frame seems quite opaque to me on the reference pic, not for you?
And with the layered shader I can have transparency as well with a white/grey checker apparently

Horri-balls have this property to stretch the distances

Ah yeah you're right of course, the ball just act as a lens indeed stupid me

Interesting stuff on your shading network. If I don't use it for that screen, I'm saving these good ideas for later

[CTZn]

Oh yes there are inconsistencies in the AE, spotted thanks ! More than one I mean. For instance, ticking the transparent parameter in the specular section has no effect as well.

Just change the medium type once and back, you should be good then. And tweak more stuff forth and back until controls are not dimmed anymore. MtI will read the materials values based on the material type, wether its parameters are dimmed by a bug in the Attribute Editor or not. You can always fall back to the Indigo Editor, and in fact you should as those AE inconsistencies may lead you naturally into mistakes.

I'll fix them of course, because it is natural from Maya users to use the AE. I know I'm less responsive fixes wise but this should not be for long

Okay about the shading solution, if the frame is opaque and painted with the labels... anyways, the choice is yours !

[Lemo]

Ok first test with Hdr studio setup.

Now I need to start tweaking those glass materials
(And correct overlapping and labels reflections)

[CTZn]

I am not sure that the exr map is making justice to your work, a more realistic studio setup could be more sexy don't you think ?

[Lemo]

Yes I do
I just picked a random one with a bunch of highlights, to try to see clearly the glass reflections before setting some different indexes or colored coatings.
Final render shall be more "subtle" indeed

[Lemo]

Hum these coated lenses seems to be the hardest parts to render though, like I mentioned in the first post...
I tried a sampler info connected to a ramp, into the transmittance layer, but that just won't do the job I guess

But apparently I'm not the first trying to render this
There's probably something to end up with, mixing those ideas with some galinette magic :
[REQ] ray bending medium (ideal lens material)
Coated glass from real measured spectral data
Pearl (fake!)

Some documentation I could find:
http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-166.html
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08091 ... sp#coating
http://www.canon.com/technology/s_labo/ ... 03/03.html