Question about depth map for PRman

[tweeeker]

I don't think there's an easy way because txmake requires a pixar format zfile (rather than a tiff or iff zfile) in order to generate a shadowmap.

If you fancy writing a bit of code however - the format of pixars zfile is available in the prman docs, and I think alias provides stuff for reading iffs. So, it should be fairly straight forward to write a maya iff zfile -> pixar zfile converter.

Finally, don't forget that for curved primitives such as nurbs and subds, the prman dicing will likely be much more accurate than your maya z render, which could lead to bias/selfshadow issues.

T

[tyic]

Thank you for your reply :)

It is really difficult for me to write an image converter......I don't familiar with programming :(
By the way, I still wanna know more...is there any hints, methods or tutorial about writing such converter??

I have done a tcl script to generate one rib then modifiy it to generate shadow maps with different angles (greatly reduce rib generation time).....but it still take me about 15 - 20 mins to create the maps for one frame(about 200 maps)...... is there any method to speed up this process??

Thank a lot again and again!!

[rendermaniac]

You could easily speed up RIB generation time by making a RIB archive of your geometry. If you are using MTOR then you can either use the SLIM archiver (not all that good in my opinion) or use the Export menu to export a RIB file and then pull the file back in with a RIB box on a proxy object. This way you are only generating the camera and lights each time.

The other thing to do might be to make a template RIB file and have a Perl/Python script read it in and just change the transform for the lightsource.

Simon

[playmesumch00ns]

I think maybe 200 maps might be slightly excessive as well. I've gotten away fine with between 8 and 20 in the past.

[tyic]

Oh!!! That's a great shock to me that only 8 to 20 lights ......!

I have tried 40, 90, 150 lights before, all give me "flash" (I think a little bit different from noise)during animation...
so its seems nealy ok with about 200 lights...

Could I got your settings?? Should I use larger or smaller shadow maps or use large samples ??

This really help me a lot ....
Thanks, Thanks, Thanks so much!:)

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