XSIndigo Exporter 1.0 RC

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 3:06 am

Hi all,

after a long silence since last release, I'm proud to provide our community a full featured XSI plug-in to bridge the gap between XSI and unbiased renderer Indigo.
Although there have been a lot of rumors on Indigo Renderer, I suggest everybody to check the official Indigo site (www.indigorenderer.com) to have a complete overview on the related functionalities. The XSI add-on is the Download ->Exporter For 3D Apps -> Softimage XSI exporter.

XSIndigo Exporter (formerly known as XSI2Indigo), has been completely updated, to be compatible with last XSI 6.xx infrastructure, and to meet all the scene description language updates needed to work with the latest Indigo stable version 09 (aka 09.10). As the .xsiaddon name suggests it's only an exporter (currently a single-frame exporter) and it's free for commercial and no-commercial reasons. A future commercial version will integrate all the CustomRender XSI API to finalize a complete integration into XSI framework.

Currently the .xsiaddon package contains the following file structure
XSIndigo
| netview_XSIndigo.xml
|
|---Application
| |---bin
| | |----nt-x86
| | IndigoEmitter.dll
| | IndigoMaterial.dll
| | IndigoMedium.dll
| | IndigoPhaseFunction.dll
| | IndigoSpectrum.dll
| |
| |-----Plugins
| | XSIndigo.dll
| |
| |-----spdl
| IndigoEmitter.spdl
| IndigoMaterial.spdl
| IndigoMedium.spdl
| IndigoPhaseFunction.spdl
| IndigoSpectrum.spdl
|
|---Data
|------DSPresets
|------Shaders
|----Material
| IndigoEmitter.Preset
| IndigoMaterial.Prese
|
|----Texture
| IndigoPhaseFunction.Preset
| IndigoSpectrum.Preset
|
|----Volume
IndigoMedium.Preset

This implementation has been focused on create a simpler workflow for the user who need to render frames in Indigo. No more Environment variable to be set, neither ini-file to edit.

No more MaterialHelper, UV Helper, Polymesh Helper and other slow-down-production menu.
Now only "Camera Helper" and "Export Scene".

To achieve a good integration with Indigo material properties some ad-hoc shaders have been created. None of them have nay kind of MentalRay integration at the current state (No shaderball previews, No Preview rendering through MR).
- IndigoMaterial (Material shader) needs to be used as surface node for your material. IndigoMaterial has 6 shaders defined: Diffuse, Phong, Specular, Glossy Transparent, Diffuse Transmitter, Null. Please refer to Indigo Manual for further information on each of them.
- IndigoEmitter (Material shader) needs to be used as surface node when your mesh acts as a light emitter. IndigoEmitter has 2 shader defined: Meshlight and Exit Portal. Please refer to Indigo Manual for further information on each of them.
- IndigoMedium (Volume shader) needs to be used when a Specular or Glossy Transparent material has been defined. It has to be directly connected into the SpecularMedium port (or GlossyTransparentMedium port) to defined to medium contained inside the mesh. IndigoMedium has 4 different shaders defined: Basic (for SSS and no-SSS effects), Epidermis, Dermis and Atmosphere. Please refer to Indigo Manual for further information on each of them.
- IndigoSpectrum (Texture shader) could be plugged in all the spectrum ports available amond Indigo shaders (Material, Emitter, Medium, PhaseFunction) to give the user to define the color spectrum for each of the controlled parameters. Please refer to Indigo Manual for further information on each of them.
- IndigoPhaseFunction (Texture shader) should be used to define the SSS Phase Function and for this reason is used in conjunction with IndigoMedium.

All the albedo, exponent and bump port can be connected either to image shaders. When using an image shader remember before proceeding to export the scene to select for each mesh with this material applied, the desired texture projection in the Texture Projection pull down in the Image property page.

A test scene (and the rendered image) is included to better explain what these few lines have tried to.

Last but not the least, I'd like to receive here or into the indigoFurom or on my email, all your feedbacks to tune the add-on and offer a better and better customer experience.

Hope you enjoy, Riccardo.

PS. A very special thanks to UpVector from XSIbase.

debris · Post by **debris** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 11:36 pm

Great stuff!

Thank you very much for this updated exporter.

P.S.: Is there a 64 bit compile in the plans?

MR_aRt · Post by **MR_aRt** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:41 pm

Hey Rgigante,

Thanks for the update of the plugin.
Can you explain how to find and apply the materials.
I can't seem to find the materials in the list or maybe I am missing something.

Cheers,
MR aRt

MR_aRt · Post by **MR_aRt** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 2:06 pm

hey Rgigante,

I think I know why the material isn't showing up. When it is installing it is showing under the column "filename " e:\softimage\xsi_6.02\addons\XSIndigo\netview_XSIndigo.xml

the destination looks like the relative directory for my instalation.

The looks like the directory structure that may reside on your system. After the instalation the menu does show XSIndigo and I can apply a camera and export but I have to use a dummy material due to the fact that the indigo material doesn't show up.

Cheers,
MR aRt

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:56 am

Hi debris, MR_aRT

first of all thanks for your interest. Now let's reply to your questions:

@debris:
unlucky since i don't have any 64-bit hw nor OS i'm not sure i can compile, and also in case i succeed for sure i can't test. So, basically now, i can't promise a 64 bit edition

@MR_aRT:
i've published in the "Download - Exporter - Softimage XSI" section a little tutorial explaining the basic workflow to operate with XSIndigo. There u'll how to properly set materials. Frankly i've never add problems with paths using installed XIS addons. The simple add-on installation should create into your XSI user folder an Add-on folder in which u will find XSIndigo folder with all the other related files.

The "express" link to the tutorial is
http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/in ... &Itemid=62

Regards, Riccardo.

debris · Post by **debris** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:14 am

Your exporter (RC3) is working very well so far.
The only little bug I found so far is, that it doesn't scale the camera focus point according to the scene's scaling but assumes 1 SI unit = 1 meter instead.

Oh, and I'd be more than happy to test a 64 bit version because you don't have the hardware to do so.

EDIT: And I was not able to get a sss material with "uniform" phase function to render in indigo. The error it throws reads "...no medium connected...".
With "HG" and spectrum connected it works.

EDIT2: Seems like it simply doesn't write the "<uniform/> tag in the .igs file...

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:47 am

@Debris:
Thanks Debris, both fixed in RC4.

Regards, Riccardo.

Morpheus_xsi · Post by **Morpheus_xsi** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:32 am

hi rgigante

i'm double posting here (xsibase)
found another possible one: diffuse bump map is not exported. works ok on phong bump

regards

debris · Post by **debris** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:57 am

Cool! Thanks a lot for your support!

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 10:08 am

RC5 released.

-bump map corrected for diffuse mats.
-XSI no more crashes when attempting to export high populated scenes.

Regards, Riccardo.

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:33 pm

RC6 released.

added - "Use Texture Converter" switch under "Material" tab;
added - "Create Ground Plane" switch under "PolyMesh" tab;
added - ChangeLog.txt into XSIndigo distro;
added - License.txt into XSIndigo distro;

Regards, Riccardo.

debris · Post by **debris** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:42 pm

Sweet! Keep up the good work!

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:20 am

RC7 released
fixed - Complex hierarchical instancing now works properly;
removed - "Export All Items" flag;
changed - "Create Separate Files" drives single export items flag;
fixed - XSIndigo_Testscenes gives no more "FRYRENDER option" error when loading;

Regards, Riccardo.

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:05 am

RC8 released (requires Indigo 1.0.1)

added - "Regular Tabulated" spectrum definition in IndigoSpectrum shader;
added - "Camera" tonemapping method added in IndigoCamera property;
changed - "Exposure Duration" (aka Shutter Speed) moved from XSIndigo prop to IndigoCamera prop;
removed - Tonemapping settings from XSIndigo property (now located under IndigoCamera Property);
changed - Halt Time set by default to -1 (Halt Sample set by default to 1000);

Regards, Riccardo.

rgigante · Post by **rgigante** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:29 pm

RC 9 released (requires Indigo 1.0.1)

1.0 RC9 (requires Indigo 1.0.1)
added - Subdivision Surfaces (+/- workflow) both in OGL then in Render;
removed - XSIndigo property doesn't contain anymore parameters related to image format. All those (width, height, aspect ratio) information are took directly from the XSI Scene Render Options;
removed - IndigoCamera property doesn't contain anymore, "Sensor Width", "Lens-Sensor Distance" and "Focus Distance". All those parameters are took directly from the XSI Camera property. The focal plane is now depending by the spatial position of the interest point. The "Lens-Sensor distance" depends by the "Focal Length" present in the "Projection Plane" tab in the XSI camera property. The "Sensor Width" depends by the X value of the Film Aperture in the "Projection Plane" tab in the XSI camera property multiplied by 25.4.
fixed - camera file naming correctly created when using separate files;

If no other bugs or request comes out, this wil be released as the official version.

Regards, Riccardo

XSIndigo Exporter 1.0 RC

XSIndigo Exporter 1.0 RC

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