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JDex
12-13-2005, 12:28 PM
The End Of Cluster Materials
December 12th, 2005 by Bernard Lebel

ABSTRACT

This article is intended more as a tutorial rather than technical or idea discussion. In this article I will explore a few texturing techniques to avoid the use of cluster materials.

INTRODUCTION

Fundamentally, putting materials on clusters seem to be the most logical approach to put different materials on a single mesh. For example, when I came into the world of XSI as a 3ds max user, the first thing I did was to put material on clusters. But that was without considering that the 3ds max workflow for materials is not the same as XSI, and it wasn’t that long that I faced problems. I changed my ways of doing things, but since then I could oftenly read on forums about people having the same kinds of problems. So I thought I could a few ideas together and share them with those having these issues.

http://www.xsi-blog.com/?p=75
dwigfor
12-13-2005, 06:20 PM
:banghead: :banghead:
I think this thread was made for me.... For toonshading stuff, I've got LOTS of material clusters. I need them in order to draw lines. I find that I need an excessive amount. For instance - say I have a cylinder sticking out from a cube. I want to have the round part of the cylinder 1 color, and the cube and the end of the cyl to be the same color. If the camera sees them overlapping, it won't draw the edge. Primarily this is the case with subds, which is what all my stuff is...

Any way that I can limit the amount of my material clusters?
thorn3d
12-13-2005, 09:27 PM
I use clusters for toonshading all the time... if you're not having any particular problems that are listed in the tutorial, just keep using them.

BUT, there are controls in the camera's ink shader (i believe it lives there) to allow for edge priority.

thorn
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12-13-2005, 09:27 PM
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