Indigo Renderer Forum

There's been good progress over the last couple of weeks.
Seeing as indigo 1.0.2 has just come out, now's probably a good time to get this revision out too.
CTZn has been working hard on rotated instances.
bkircher has worked on the camera and global scale and the scriptnode.
I've updated the material presets, added some test scenes and generally kept an eye on what is and isn't working.

Please report bugs and suggestions in this thread.

CHANGE LOG
----------------------------
63 / doug
08-11-2007 release.

62 / doug
updated material preset scene (v8.5 compatible), and added it's textures.

61 / ctzn
- Fixed rotations.
- Updated mti_makeInstances with random code attribute. By the way I didn't test that feature with new rotations.
- Updated Documentation.txt and TODO.txt
- bit of re-formating in output pane of SE

60 / bkircher
- Many mti-settings are now keyable and can be modified in the channel box
- added a Global Factor Setting, default 1, not working properly with camera yet
- added an UpRandomRotation element to locators. Works in principle but has to be checked.
- added a sketch of the camera settings, but got stuck, so they are just a heap of comments.

59 / bkircher
Sample mti-Settings preset to give an easy model how to name the elements.

58 / doug
added two new test scenes.
- camera framing calibration
- material preview scene (imported from blender)

57 / bkircher
added GlobalScaleFactor $mtiSF (passed as $mtoGSF_CAM to mtiExportModuleCamera):
Except Z-Orientation of the Camera, it seems to work, test with $mtoGSF ~0.5.
Will Continue on Random Rotation for locators, prepared by
"float $mtiRotationRandomRange = 0;" Need a mtiLocator attribut called mtiRotationRandomRange.

56 / doug
corrected camera
- removed OBACHT/shader debug print() output

55 / doug
- changed default reinhard settings. pre 2, post 1, burn 6.5.
- typo turbitiy => turbidity
- change b-body temp minimum to 500.
-some minor code style points:
rename indcamera() to mti_IndigoCamera()
rename SmoothShading_Proc() to something mti_ related
some code formatting in mti_Main.mel

54 / doug
updated blinn presets to work with revised SSS code.

53 / ctzn
Rotations around up axis now work for instances in both schemes. Rotations around other axes give wrong results; I don't think I can go further without help.

52 / ctzn
- Supposedly having primal rotation abilities. Untested cause bug in obj export name (name.

51 / ctzn
- World up axis should be detected automagically. Maybe I forget to update certain code chunks accordingly. Removed from GUI.
- Added redundancy in scriptNode, but at least read/write from file works in all case here.

50 / bkircher
Added CommandButton to SavePathsToFile

49 / bkircher
corrected examples

48 / bkircher
added example of path naming naming

47 / doug
another attempt to fix the ScriptNode bugs. added lots of debug output, please test and report messages if the script fails.
added info about SSS to Documentation.txt

46 / doug
Fixed ScriptNode bug.
CHANGED BLINN SHADER.
absorption_spectrum is now controlled by COLOR
if ambient RGB == 0, then use uniform scattering controlled by lightAbsorbance,
else use ambientColor RGB as scattering_spectrum.
added another SSS test scene. (uses new SSS export values).

45 / doug
corrected syntax error with linear tonemapping start tag.

44 / doug
bug fixes with loading paths from file breaking full loading of mti_settings.

43 / doug
tidy up extraneous file, also tidy up readme, documentation and TODO.

42 / doug
testing SVN conflict. also fixed mti_SavePathsToFile; call in mti_ScriptNode.mel being in the wrong place.
(also added some junk to Documentation.txt and TODO.txt, this can be removed later).

41 / doug
SVN conflict testing.

40 / doug
created save/load indigo paths to file procs.
on first mti_Main() load the defaults will be written to file, and then used subsequently.
we need a GUI button to save the settings if the user changes them. they are not auto saved.

39 / ctzn
Fixed: Instances where flipped in the z axis when y was up.

38 / doug
updated mti_ScriptNode.mel to read indigo path from file (not currently active - awaiting procedure to write file before enabling).

37 / ctzn
- fixed instances not working with Y up
- added scale to instances
- updated Documentation

36 / ctzn
- Fixed initialShadingGroup bug
35 / ctzn

34 / doug
mti_Main
--------
-added global proc mti_makeMtiInstances (non GUI yet).Select mesh to be instanced followed by instancing locators, then call "mti_makeMtiInstances;". There is an error at export time because some new undocumented attributes are missing from the locators, please help with that (line 62) and with GUI integration. I've put a temporary icon if that helps in the appropriate folder.
- added global proc mti_sun. If you don't want the group, comment line 99 out.

EDIT: made a mistake of including the old exporter in the first upload. now updated with just the current exporter in the .zip file.

bkricher:
having now got the hang of presets ( ) I can see how the SavePathsToFile is kinda pointless.

Can we get the mti_settings preset to work without the Blend X% parts? I don't think blending really makes a lot of sense in this context.

bug/note: default sky turbidity ought to be more like 2.0

QUICK FIX #1

indigo v1.0.2 doesn't like the following in <render_settings>:
russian_roulette_live_prob
strata_width
halt_samples

I've removed them in this version, just so that the exporter works with v1.0.2

It's 'halt_samples_per_pixel'

OnoSendai wrote:It's 'halt_samples_per_pixel'

ah - is this a recent renaming? how come earlier indigo versions had no problem with it?

No it's not a recent renaming.
I added in a check for valid XML elements in renderer_settings in v1.0.2

ok cool.

ctzn: can you update the documentation with info about your instances please.

bkircher: can you document your phongE things please? I've sill no idea how that's supposed to work.

dougal2 wrote:ctzn: can you update the documentation with info about your instances please.

That was supposedly done in r61, plz check it again !

Yes for strata width and russian roulette, I did that in a previous release but we were not synchronized yet by SVN and that was lost. Please restore hspp !!!

Here's what I plan to do this evening:

1.
add halt_samples_per_pixel back in

2.
Remove the load/save paths to file functions. We have AE presets which are a better solution I think.

3.
change the default turbidity value

4.
Start formatting the documentation in HTML, re-writing some bits.
This time I am going to test every documented feature thoroughly before I write it up, just to make sure everything that is documented works. This may end up reading much like a tutorial. Perhaps I'll add some screenshots too.


Please add any further small tweaks here. I plan to do #1-#3 fairly quickly within the next hour or so. #4 will probably take me the rest of the evening.

can anyone confirm if the additions to Maya.env are still relevant or necessary please ?

REV 65

- add halt_samples_per_pixel back in
- Remove the load/save paths to file functions. We have AE presets which are a better solution I think.
- change the default turbidity value
- removed /MAX (found it annoying, perhaps it could become an mti_setting)
- removed unnecessary cmd /c
- added Working Master networking support
- added network port mti_Setting
- added console setting
- fixed scriptnode num_threads max value
- added net and console options to GUI. fixed some attr linking. re-arranged GUI slightly.

I think also I've fixed the savLocal setting. I can't recall this working before, but that may have been due to the fact that i'd not really tested it.

REV 66

updated about/credits window.
removed broken GUI menu items.

That's about all I can deal with this evening. the documentation will have to wait.

REV 67

added albedo_texture support to phong material.

THAT'S IT.THAT'S REALLY IT.THAT'S ALL I'M DOING THIS EVENING. REALLY

i'll post an image a bit later

the alien model i'm working on at work. modelled by a colleague, rigged and textured by me. i haven't started on any animation yet, hence the render of the bindpose. exported using MtIr67, albedo textures on phong materials. probably should just have used lamberts/diffuses but never mind. this render also lacks bump maps.

Cool cool cool, things are going the right way I'm impatient to see the new documentation, I have no clue on how to use textures with MtI...

I'm going to wander around and see what else can be rounded up.