8.5 layer shader?

[wizlon]

Mix20layer runs fine here on OSX Maya 8.5 Service Pack 1.

[mindsample]

mix20 works fine on 8.5

The reasons a lot of people prefer mix20 is because if you use networks such as fast SSS etc. where you use lightmaps you actually need to layer shading groups rather than shaders to make things work, which to my knowledge the internal maya ones still dont provide as a possibility.

[tfritzsche]

Is mix20 working on Intel Maya 8.5?, I know it is working on PPC boxes (G5's) and under Rosetta, but Intel?

[mindsample]

Of course. Its working fine on windows/linux/osx in Maya 8.5. Both AMD, INTEL.

[acidream]

In mental ray the layered shader that comes with maya takes forever to render. It has added several minutes to time it takes to render a single frame for me in the past. Mix8layer has very little rendertime penalty, and I assume mix20layer is the same.

[tfritzsche]

Of course. Its working fine on windows/linux/osx in Maya 8.5. Both AMD, INTEL.

Hi
When I use the mix20layer on an Intel Mac running Maya 8.5 in native mode, I get this error: // Warning: (Mayatomr.Custom) : /Applications/Autodesk/maya8.5/Maya.app/Contents/mentalray/include/mix20layer.mi: couldn't find shader library //
and nothing renders

when I unload and then reload mix20layer (MR shader manager) I get this error: // Error: (mental ray) : /Applications/Autodesk/maya8.5/Maya.app/Contents/mentalray/lib/mix20layer.so: load failed, //
Do I have to declare these in my maya.rayrc file even though they are in the default location?
how have you made this shader work on an intel Mac?
BTW it renders just fine under Rosetta (i.e. emulating a PPC).
I believe, this shader as well as many other OSX MR shaders created before maya 8.0 have not been updated for intel Macs (all .so's need to be recompiled for the new chip).

[mindsample]

Apologies, the OSX actually runs maya7 with mix20, so I can not confirm that mix20 works on 8.5 on osx.

However it works fine on both Linux and Windows. In Windows I did not have to declare the shader in the rayrc.

[tfritzsche]

No problem Mindsample, just a monetary glimmer of hope.
The loss of so many custom MR shaders is a large price to pay for the increased speed of UB maya.
I have started to look into DRutil shaders (the only ones I found working on intel Macs), they seem to have some layered shaders, still experimenting and figuring out how it all works - mix8(20) were such nice simple shaders, I do miss them.

thomas

[spiralof5]

/////mix20 works fine on 8.5

Then later you say

/////Apologies, the OSX actually runs maya7 with mix20, so I can not confirm that mix20 works on 8.5 on osx.

/////However it works fine on both Linux and Windows. In Windows I did not have to declare the shader in the rayrc.

Not to rub it in anyone's face, I just need to know hence my original post. Am I stuck with maya layer shader? I don't have access to windows. Nor do I want to buy and use with bootcamp because I'm strapped for cash on this project.

[tfritzsche]

spiralof5
I may have not been clear in my posts, I am running Maya 8.5 on a MacPro (intel chip), I have found that mix8 amd mix20 (and other custom MR shaders) do not work on Maya 8.5 in native mode, BUT this does NOT mean they do not run on 8.5, they DO, just not natively on intel based Macs.
So if you have a PPC chip (G5 or earlier) all is well, these shaders work, if you have a MacPro, MacBook,MacBook Pro, thus an intel chip, these shaders only will work if you launch Maya 8.5 under Rosetta (earlier versions of maya only run under Rosetta, 8.5 being Univeral Binary) If you run 8.5 in native mode the shaders will not work.

hope this clears things up

thomas

[fahr]

Any chance of mix20layer showing up for native macintel any time soon? :) Where are these MR shaders usually found? Im a bit new to custom MR shaders, I'm having enough trouble dealing with the ones that are built in, but i know I will need mix20layer and ctl_buffers (is there an OSX intel version of that)?
Thanks!

[tfritzsche]

<snip>Where are these MR shaders usually found?<snip>but i know I will need ... ctl_buffers (is there an OSX intel version of that)?
Thanks!

Sorry ctl_buffers, as well as many of the other ctl_ shaders, never made it to OSX :sad:

Some places to find the old shaders - none of these work in 8.5 native mode (see above post) - are:
http://www.tomcowland.com/mentalray/ (http://www.pixero.com/downloads.html)
http://www.pixero.com/downloads.html

and one shader group that does work on intel Macs:
http://www.duikerresearch.com/free/index.html


thomas

[spiralof5]

Thank you so much for the clarification. Yes I'm running Intel Based and I'm not quite sure what Rosetta is (I'm new to macintosh, former PC user for 15 years). I'll look it up on Google but if you have the time and feel like pointing me in the right direction.......thank you again. This really helps because the realistic skin only seems possible (or rather possibly much easier) with mix20layer. This is a huge gripe I think maya has really overlooked. 3D studio max has had complex layer shaders for quite some time and Maya programmers need to get their act together.

[spiralof5]

Definitely want to give a shout to Thomas and Fritzsche for the very helpful posts. Thank you.

[tfritzsche]

Thanks for the shout out:)
Rosetta is the name for Apple's emulation of legacy PPC code, since Maya is built as Universal Binary code, meaning both PPC code and Intel code, you can run it in rosetta. First go to your Maya app in the finder and then get info on it, in the Get Info window in the General tab you will see a check box "open using rosetta". Rosetta will seriously hurt your render times, so don't forget to uncheck the option when you are finished. you may what to experiment with the duiker research shaders they seem to have layering shaders(see above posts)

thomas

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