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Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:44 am
by ashscott
I'm trying to render a batch file on the render farm, so testing 2.0.12 exported files into indigo 1.1.18
When I try to open the batch file with 1.1.18 I get the following message:
IndigoDriverExcep: SceneLoaderExcep: failed to load xml doc from path 'C:\blahblahblah': Error document empty. Line 0, column 0

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:23 am
by Whaat
ashscott wrote:I'm trying to render a batch file on the render farm, so testing 2.0.12 exported files into indigo 1.1.18
When I try to open the batch file with 1.1.18 I get the following message:
IndigoDriverExcep: SceneLoaderExcep: failed to load xml doc from path 'C:\blahblahblah': Error document empty. Line 0, column 0
Does the animation work with 2.0.12? If not, there could be a bug.

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 10:40 am
by ashscott
Error: There was an error with the scene file: failed to load XML doc from path 'C:\Documents and Settings\Ash\Desktop\2.0.12 batch.bat': Error document empty. (Line 0, column 0.)

Is the error message when I try to open a 2.1.12 batch in indigo 2.0.12

Also, do you know of any NZ based render farms, or people that provide this service to indigo users.....has anyone rendered a batch file via a commercial render farm??

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:02 am
by Pibuz
hi Whaat!

I'm just testing a thing..
I was wondering whether the constant background option (a constant colour "sky dome") is working in this version of SkIndigo or if it's still broken..
I'm referring to the possibility to activate a colour choosing "background colour" instead of "sky" inside SU style panel, and "SketchUp background colour" inside SkIndigo Env panel.

I am trying this now, and while using camera tonemapping, whatever the camera parameters are, everything turns white and burned out..
Switching to reinhard tonemapping make the things visible, but it seems to me that the colour of the sky isn't the grey one I picked in SU style panel :wink: (it comes kinda pinkish).

My goal is to achieve a very foggy scene (I'm trying sort of a concrete garden), and I think it all would turn out very well if I had a uniform grey sky lighting the scene. That, and the fog.

So, waiting for your answer! Thank you!

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 11:53 pm
by kwistenbiebel
Hi Whaat,

I didn't test Sk(Indigo) any more since it went commercial but I am about to...

Here's my question: would it be possible to mention the latest Indigo built the plugin is compatible with?

For the moment I can't tell which Indigo version to download with this Skindigo plugin...
Is it the 'double so fast' 2.2.1?

Thanks in advance,

Kwistenbiebel

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:27 am
by remus
Skindigo 2.0.12 will work with indigo 2.2.1, and i second the idea of mentioning the latest compatible version.

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 1:57 pm
by kwistenbiebel
Thanks Remus.

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12

Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:19 am
by Whaat
remus wrote:Skindigo 2.0.12 will work with indigo 2.2.1, and i second the idea of mentioning the latest compatible version.
I'll try to do a better job of this. In general, SkIndigo versions are 'forward compatible'. They will work with newer versions of Indigo. However, they MAY not always work with older versions of Indigo. So if you have SkIndigo 2.0.12, make sure you have at least Indigo 2.0.12 or newer.

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12c (Updated 26 Aug 09)

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 3:41 pm
by Whaat
Released version 2.0.12c. This will also work with Indigo 2.2 (beta). Please download this version as there are some critical bug fixes.

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12c (Updated 26 Aug 09)

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 7:28 pm
by Pibuz
Thank you very much Whaat!!
Any info about my constant background issue question?

..and a simple question: why have you changed the rendering environment for the preview scenes, from console to GUI? I found that it worked well! And I felt that a different rendering environment for previews was a smart idea!

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12c (Updated 26 Aug 09)

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 2:09 am
by cpfresh
thanks for the update Whaat! as Pibuz has said it is not possible to use camera tonemapping with the SketchUp background color environment. I did some messing around and it seems the background gain variable could use some recalibration? currently i find it set to 200,000 but it seems to work better at just 20. how did you come to that initial setting?

thanks again for the update!

@Pibuz i've tried to send you a PM but don't know if it is going thru or not...?

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12c (Updated 26 Aug 09)

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 2:37 am
by Whaat
@pibuz:

I found that when I wanted to render the Indigo material database preview scene, I preferred the GUI because:
a) the display is larger (the scene renders 500x500 which then gets shrunk in the SkIndigo UI)
2) it allows easy network rendering of preview images (however, I could also add a setting that would allow the indigo console to use network rendering for previews)

The sphere and the cube scenes still use the console. Try it out and see what you think. If you prefer it the old way, I can change it back

@cpfresh: I think I may have calibrated the gain on the background color based on reinhard tonemapping :oops: I know that I did many tests and the gain that I found was necessary to balance meshlight emitters. I admit that I totally lost track of this issue. I will put it on my TODO list. It would be great if you and pibuz could help calibrate this for me.

If you open SkIndigo and go to around line 6450, there is a line that says:
bg_gain=20000

If you play around with this value, you can help me calibrate this.

One possible workaround would be to put the sun and sky on separate layers. That way, you can control the X,Y,Z gain of the sky using the Indigo GUI (in effect changing the sky to any color you want)

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12c (Updated 26 Aug 09)

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 3:54 am
by Pibuz
Whaat wrote:One possible workaround would be to put the sun and sky on separate layers. That way, you can control the X,Y,Z gain of the sky using the Indigo GUI (in effect changing the sky to any color you want)
I already do this actually :wink:
The fact is that in this way the sky is always somehow affected by sun's position. In most of the cases I know that this is not a problem at all, but still makes some differences in some peculiar situations, e.g. a very cloudy day, or a foggy one.

By the way, I simply think that the constant background colour could be useful sometimes (even only to spare a light layer, so a little RAM), and could be cool to have this feature. I'll have a look at the gain parameter for sure, if this can help a little. :D

Concerning the console/GUI preview topic, I must say that I preferred the console version. I never needed a larger prevew scene, and you say that network rendering for previews through console could be implemented. My opinion is to change it back, if possible, and if this doesn't bother anybody else.

Thank you very much!

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12c (Updated 26 Aug 09)

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:10 am
by cpfresh
Hi Whaat,

I would suggest making Indigo launch as working master by default ... or does it hurt performance in some way if there are never any slaves connecting. I find that I always go in and add the -n wm string every new version of SkIndigo. And Console was great for material previews (with network of course.) The updating frequency seems to be different on each preview scene which is weird but not TOO important. Will the old sphere and cube scenes be dropped eventually? Materials look very different in those scenes versus the Indigo scene.

I am happy with the bg_gain set to 20.

Thanks for your hard work!

--
Sean

Re: SkIndigo 2.0.12c (Updated 26 Aug 09)

Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 9:47 pm
by Pibuz
Sorry for the odd question but I've been using dummy proxies for so long.. :roll: :lol:

Is it possible to use the instance method on components/groups without substituting them with proxies?

I know the standard workflow with dummies VERY WELL, but in some scenes it is not possible to work with cubes or simplified geometry, mostly for designing problems: a window has to be visualized as a window to communicate with the client. Often, these models I work with are huge, so it is a little time consuming to go and search around in the model to replace all the components with simpler blocks.

So basically I wanted to know if I could in any way set standard components to behave as instances. Thank you and sorry for the basic question.. :oops: