Author Archives: xsisupport

[C4DtoA] Installing C4DtoA in a custom location

Posted on by
Reply

The C4DtoA installer puts the C4DtoA plugin in the default location: the plugins folder of the Cinema 4D install.

If you want to put C4DtoA somewhere else, like a shared network location, you can use the C4D_PLUGINS_DIR environment variable to point to your custom plugin location.

For example, on Windows I moved C4DtoA to a different drive and then set my environment like this:

set C4D_PLUGINS_DIR=F:\plugins
set PATH=F:/plugins/C4DtoA/arnold/bin;%PATH%

Note that I had to set PATH so C4D could find ai.dll, and that I had to use forward slashes (on Windows, C4D doesn’t like backslashes in the PATH and drops them).

On Windows, the C4DtoA installer puts a second copy of ai.dll in the C:\Program Files\MAXON\CINEMA 4D R17, so you’ll have to remove that ai.dll, and use PATH to point to the ai.dll in the C4DtoA arnold/bin folder.

Portable ASS files with relative paths and the Texture Search Path

Posted on by
Reply

You can make your ASS files portable across different platforms by using relative paths and the texture search path. For example, if all textures are specified by relative paths like “textures/noicon.tx”, then you just have to set options.texture_searchpath to specify the location of the textures folder.

For example

kick -set options.texture_searchpath //server/project/ -dp -dw example.ass

Or if the texture search path is set to an environment variable

export ARNOLD_TEXTURE_PATH=//server/project
./kick example.ass

To use relative paths for texture file names in nodes like MayaFile, aiImage, aiPhotometricLight, and aiSkydomeLight, you just need to do the following:

  • Put a relative path in the file name box (for example, in Photometry File box of an aiPhotometricLight node, or the Image Name box of an aiImage node)
  • Set the Texture Search Path (Render Settings > System > Search Paths)
  • Clear the Absolute Texture Paths check box

You can put multiple locations, using either : or ; to separate the paths (Arnold supports both separators on all platforms: OSX, Linux, and Windows)

You can use environment variables by putting the environment variable name in square brackets. For example:

"[ARNOLD_TEXTURE_PATH]:C:/Assets/IES/;C:/maya/projects/Support/sourceimages"

Forward slashes work on all platforms.

MtoA appends the current project’s sourceimages folder to the texture search path.

Why can’t I use kick -set options.shader_searchpath ?

Posted on by
Reply

You may wonder: why can’t I use kick -set options.shader_searchpath to tell Arnold where to find shaders?

Well, it’s because kick loads the ASS file first, then applies the kick -set parameter overrides. And also, Arnold when loads an ASS file, Arnold automatically loads shaders from the shader_searchpath as soon as Arnold loads the options node.

Here’s the sequence of events:

  1. kick loads all plugins specified by -l or by ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH before it loads the ASS file
  2. kick loads the ASS file. When Arnold loads the options node, Arnold automatically loads all plugins specified by options.shader_searchpath.That’s why the options node is at the top of an ASS file: so Arnold can load any required shaders before loading the shader nodes. It you move the options to bottom of the ASS file, the shader nodes in the ASS file won’t be loaded.
  3. Finally, after all the nodes are loaded, the -set parameter overrides are applied. At this point, it’s too late for any shaders from the -set options.shader_searchpath loacation. The corresponding nodes were already discarded during the loading of the ASS file.

 

WARNING mtoa_shading_groups: unresolved reference

Posted on by
Reply

Any time you see “node … is not installed” and “unresolved reference” warnings when you try to kick an ASS file exported from Maya, the problem is missing MtoA shaders.


00:00:00 18MB WARNING | [ass] line 259: node "MayaFile" is not installed
00:00:00 18MB WARNING | [ass] line 288: node "MayaShadingEngine" is not installed

00:00:03 23MB WARNING | [ass] line 238: pSphereShape1.mtoa_shading_groups: unresolved reference to 'aiStandard2SG'
00:00:03 23MB WARNING | [ass] line 137: aiSkyDomeLightShape1.color: unresolved reference to 'file1'
00:00:03 23MB WARNING | [ass] line 188: pPlaneShape1.shader: unresolved reference to 'aiStandard1SG'
00:00:03 23MB WARNING | [ass] line 197: pPlaneShape1.mtoa_shading_groups: unresolved reference to 'aiStandard1SG'
00:00:03 23MB WARNING | [ass] line 229: pSphereShape1.shader: unresolved reference to 'aiStandard2SG'

When you render with kick, you need to specify the location of the MtoA shaders. You can do this several ways:

  • Set the ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable. For example: 
    export ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH=/home/render/solidangle/mtoa/2016/shaders
    set ARNOLD_PLUGIN_PATH=C:\solidangle\mtoadeploy\2016\shaders
  • Use the kick -l flag to specify the MtoA shader location.
  • In Maya, set the Shader Search Path in the Arnold Render Settings, then export the ASS file.

[MtoA] Per-light AOVs for volumes

Posted on by
Reply

 

Arnold 4.2.12.2 added support for per-light AOVs for volumetrics.

Here’s how to set up per-light AOVs in MtoA 1.2.6.0:

  1. In the light Attribute Editor, enter a name for the light group.
  2. Create a custom AOV for the light group. Give the AOV a name that starts with “volume_”. For example, if the light group name is “red”, then the AOV name is “volume_red”.

aov_light_group

[MtoA] Creating the defaultArnold nodes in scripting

Posted on by
Reply

Loading MtoA isn’t enough to create the defaultArnoldRenderOptions node. The defaultArnoldRenderOptions node isn’t created until a user opens the Arnold Render Settings for the first time.

In code, you can do it like this:

from mtoa.core import createOptions
createOptions()

# Set default render options
setAttr( "defaultArnoldRenderOptions.motion_blur_enable", 1 )

When createOptions() creates the defaultArnoldRenderOptions node, it also creates the defaultArnoldDisplayDriver, defaultArnoldDriver, defaultArnoldFilter nodes and hooks them up to the defaultArnoldRenderOptions node.

defaultArnoldRenderOptions

Note that for setting defaults like this, you can also user a userSetup.py file. createOptions() calls hook functions that you can implement in your userSetup.py.

[MtoA] MayaFile node uses a default color for missing textures

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s something important to remember when you’re debugging a scene…

By default, the MayaFile node uses a default color if a texture is missing.

MayaFile_Use_Default_Color

This means the render won’t abort because of missing textures, and you won’t see ERRORs like these in the Arnold log for missing texture files:

ERROR   |   [texturesys] OpenImageIO could not open "sourceimages/noicon.tx" as tx: Could not open file "sourceimages/noicon.tx"
ERROR   |   [texturesys] Invalid image file "sourceimages/noicon.tx"

So missing textures can easily go unnoticed.

If you need to disable Use Default Color for testing, an easy way is to export an ASS file and then render it with kick -set MayaFile.useDefaultColor false.

I suppose you could also modify the Maya scene file directly:

import maya.cmds as cmds
import os

def set_useDefaultColor(b):
    filenodes=cmds.ls(type="file")
    for item in filenodes:
        cmds.setAttr( "%s.aiUseDefaultColor" % item, b )

set_useDefaultColor( False )

And finally, you can change the default value of the Use Default Color parameter by adding this to shaders/mtoa_shaders.mtd:

[node MayaFile]
	[attr useDefaultColor]
		default		BOOL	false

[Arnold] Rolling shutter in a nutshell

Posted on by
Reply

What’s rolling shutter? It’s an effect, or artifact, that looks like like this:
3192314056_fa8b5160d2_o

Rolling shutter means that the image isn’t captured all at once, but one scanline at a time:

Lee posted a video walk through of how to get the rolling shutter effect with Arnold. He used C4DtoA, but it’s basically the same recipe in any of the Arnold plugins:

  • Your geometry has to be spinning fast (like a propeller 😉
  • Select your camera, and enable Rolling Shutter. Leave the duration at 0.
  • In the Render Settings, enable motion blur (you don’t need deformation blur, or camera blur).
  • Adjust the number of motion keys, and the shutter length, to taste. As you increase the shutter length to exaggerate the effect, you’ll need more motion keys.

Update: And here’s some more interesting experiments with the rolling shutter effect

[Arnold] Tips for reducing noise when rendering interior scenes with indirect lighting

Posted on by
Reply

Indirect lighting of interior scenes can be a challenge, but there are some things you can do. In this post, we’ll give you some quick tips, but you can find more detailed information on support.solidangle.com, both for interior lighting and for troubleshooting noise.

Avoid the Skydome and use a Sky background and Quad lights

Instead of using a Skydome light, use a Sky for the background and quad lights for the light coming in through the windows. The quad lights should just barely cover the entire window.

If there’s anything visible outside the window, you may want to put a spot light on them. Just be careful not to let the spot light go into the room.

Use a distant light to simulate beams of light coming into the room

A distant_light is an easy-to-use option that perfectly matches sun light.

Spot lights don’t produce realistic sun beams since the beams look like they’re expanding, which sun beams don’t do. Moving the spot light further back, and also making sure it’s no larger than it needs to be to illuminate the window, will reduce noise and make it look more realistic.

Don’t put lights too close to the windows

If a light is too close to the window, that means the light hitting the window area is significantly more concentrated and so much brighter than the light hitting the far side of the room and so this produces more noticeable noise.

Make sure your materials are physically based

For example, don’t shade the room Standard shaders with a Diffuse weight of 1, and Diffuse color full white (1 1 1). I don’t think there’s any material known to man that is this reflective. Lowering the Diffuse weight to 0.7 will roughly match white paint and it will also get rid of noise. If it’s too dark, then try increasing the intensity of the lights, increase the number of diffuse bounces, or increase the camera’s exposure.

For a richer look, avoid fake lights inside the room

Consider getting rid of any fake lights you may have inside the room, and instead increase the number of diffuse and glossy bounces in order to get an even more realistic look, not to mention make the lighting easier. Doing that does increase render times, unfortunately, but does give a richer look.

hat tip: Thiago