MtI rev 63 08 nov 2007

[dougal2]

FYI: i'm scripting right now on a couple of things.
mostly tidying up, but I might do camera tonemapping too.

[bkircher]

Dougal, I'm working on mti_Main, mti_ScriptNode and a new mti_UserPrefs file:

Should I commit, or will something akward happen?

I'm cleaning up the UI too, btw.:
I've moved many tools to an optional icon bar, and yes, it is looking more clean.

I'm going to link the indigo resolution to maya-resolution.

[dougal2]

carry on, let me know when you're done. commit your changes as normal.

the only thing that might conflict is what I'm doing in ScriptNode. I'll resolve it later.
I'm working on mti_Gen and ShadersModule as well.
I might also touch on CameraModule too, just to check/tidy a couple of things.

[bkircher]

Updated:
Only one row of Icons instantly visible,
removed some icons.

Added mti_UserPrefs.mel file for main presets.

[dougal2]

you code merged seamlessly

apart from:

Code: Select all

// Warning: File not found: mti_IES.bmp // 

please upload !

[CTZn]

Sorry for the late response Doug.

No I don't use localSaveDir, I use IndigoDir wich should be renamed SceneSavDir, as that is what it really is and it would help the user understand what it's for.

Lol kidding, but no I'm not. Yes there is definitly something to do here for the sake of logic, because it's a very unusual and confusing setup.

Now please answer to the following:

What feature am I missing ATM if MtI is not aware of Indigo path ?Can IES and such be stored in an other place ? If yes, why do we force the user to write in an app folder, when this folder may be write-protected by admin rights, along with other apps in a profesional network, and when the scene will render the same if saved anywhere (let's take the user project dir as a random example) ?

That's regressive, if you want my crude opinion.

Being realistic now, everything is because of the inifile issue, this rely on Ono only, and when it will be fixed we will be able to launch renders from anywhere so yes, Indigo path is important but in my humble opinion it is not a project dir, it's a place for shipped testscenes at the most.

I'll run MtI into some tests the next days; as usual I'm yelling while you're working hard ooops can't follow that pace.

It's yours now, impressive job really.

[dougal2]

well, the way I do things is as follows, and I accept that you may do them differently.

I unzip an indigo release into a folder, ie:
u:\render\indigo\indigo_v1.0.3\

that folder contains eveything as shipped with indigo, and nothing else. I don't change anything.

I have a folder for my IES library one level up from that:
u:\render\indigo\ies\

(IMO, nk_data and camera response functions ought to be here too, but nevermind )

and my XMLs get saved to
u:\render\indigo\scenes\

[dougal2]

bkircher:
Sorry, but I'm not getting on with your UserPrefs() at all... it resets mti_settings every time I open the exporter window!

I'm going to disable it for now.

[bkircher]

Update
x/yres now referencing mayas default.resolution node (or whatever it is called). Improved the GUI.

- - - -

Sorry guys, I'm a simpleton and a messy as far as indigo work files and locations are concerned:
The reason for a save-local switch was that I found writing thousands of tiny .obj files via network an excellent way to thumb my nose. So the Idea really was to have a working local copy to test/export large scenes, and for others to directly work on a network folder. (used it once or twice since only)

Anyways, Dougal's proposal is making sense of that mess, seems to me.

- - - - -

Dougal, can you add a check if the world is Y up or Z up and rotate the Camera accordingly for those miserable ones that have to work with z-up.
Should I do it ?

Apart from that, except some cosmetic to the code, I think were pretty much there.

[bkircher]

Ups, forget to check if mti_settings existed before calling
mti_UserPrefs.

Sorry for any inconvenience,
Updated.

[dougal2]

Rev 98

- implemented Cmera Tonemapping
- implemented proper linear tonemapping
- rearranged tonemapping and environment in mti_Gen.mel to use switch..case statements
- changed tonemapping switch to enum
- some source formatting
- removed a few old commented out lines

[CTZn]

that's a list, you both have !

bkircher, I understand your point better now. I'll wait until you both are asleep cause I don't know what to test now.

Please leave a working revision tonight if that's not asking to much, if not I'll be into fixing. Release locks etc, give me directives if you have some.

Good night !

[dougal2]

REV 100 (WOOHOO ?!)

- added diffuse_transmitter into lambert shader. controlled by Transparency
- updated documentation


should alll be working OK. I'm done for this evening.

very minor side note: can you two please tidy up the bits of the documentation you added... just for readability. don't worry if you can't be bothered, I will reformat it into a web page at some point anyway.

[bkircher]

Great, also thanks for the wiki/documentation:

Before release:
I'll try to go through the presentation once this evening, fix what I find, especially with the text I added.
I'll add Z/Y-up check to the IES-Locator.
And I'll have a look into the Sun-thing,
had a sample scene here which rendered black. (Maybe my scene, maybe something else).
And I'll add some simple presets, that will partly modify single attributes only: I'll update the script presets and add some to the phongs.

- - - - - - -
An example of a reduced prefs-script, manually edited:

startAttrPreset( "script" );
blendAttrStr "mti_indigoDir" "D:/Program Files/indigo_v1/";
blendAttrStr "mti_indigoLocalDir" "D:/Program Files/indigo_v1/";
blendAttrStr "mti_objsSavDir" "objs/";
blendAttrStr "mti_texturesSavDir" "textures/";
blendAttrStr "mti_IESSavDir" "ies/";
blendAttrStr "mti_envSavDir" "environments/";
blendAttr "mti_GlobalScaleFactor" 0.01;
blendAttr "mti_useAdvOpt" 1;
blendAttr "mti_maxDepth" 1000;
endAttrPreset();

We should publish now and add some packages (like prefs reduced to the absolutely necessary...).

We could use this script to save custom attribs like textures, embedding them into this, i think.

[dougal2]

one thing that I noticed is that the exporter windows doesn't resize properly when showing/hiding the extra tools.

could they just popup in a separate toolbox to save messing with the main layout?

also, shouldn't all setAttr's in the ScriptNode be in UserPrefs? That way all the defaults are configurable by the user.
(tbh, I'm not really a fan of the UserPrefs anyway).

Can we also add some install instructions to the documentation? (I might do this later - I might also look at the possibility of making an installer).