Annouce: Mental Ray Render Pass ToolKit 1.0 Released

#41

as a matter of fact here is one that supports buffers for 32 and 64 bit and has the sourcecode with it.
http://www.render3d.de/data/shaders/mentalray/simplePasses.zip

#42

calmasacow: thanks s for your comment, except the simple pass, could you point out another buffer shader that work as you mention. The simple pass shader is TOO SIMPLE IMO for some thing like this, and its setup is quite complicated, not product or studio oriented

#43

yes but as I stated the source is there. you can make whatever you wnat from there that is the path we are looking at now. I just notice you are using the zdOF shader. this one is limited to 32bit as well unfortunately. I have talked with the author and he is very unco-operative. Hey will not make a 64bit version until Autodesk releases a native 64bit version of maya for the mac. Which to my knowledge is not going to be anytime in the near future. we offeered to work with him to produce it but he was very stand-offish and difficult. So again we are resorting to building this one from scratch as well. I will keep this thread updated with whatever we come up with.

But waiting for ctrl.studio or andreas bauer to make 64 bit versions of their shders is prolly just not going to happen. I mean crtl.studio doesn’t even have a website. From what I undestand there are a few differnt people that have come to the forums that claim to have worked at this place but honestly, I cannot find any proof that it actually exist.

#44

ya. I also have email him for a 64 bit and get the same answer :sad:

I agree about the dependence on ctrl.studio for there new version of ctrl_buffer or 64 bit version (I have raised a thread with this topic and get no info), and dont understand why autodesk/alias dont give us this kind of shader although there are thoundsand of moans from us.

I am just having a little knowedge of scripting and building phenomenon, so I can not do anything but build my tool on top of others’s shader. If you could make a buffer shader that handy enough into production, I will immediately make another mia phen based on your shader without doubt.

Hope to see your shader soon

#45

Well in their defense Autodesk only gives us the shaders that Mental Images is giving them.

To be honest with you the fact that this thing is dependant on shaders in the first place is freaking rediculas. All other renders have this function nativly Vray and renderman both have it defined inthe globals and you just click on the passes that you want. It is so much simpler. Unfortunatly renderman is just rediculasly priced if you want to render on 64bit. you have to use renderman pro server. $3500 US per license. This was doen to protect that money. because if there was a windows 64 bit version of renderman for maya the number of licenses they sell of RPS would drop dramaticly. Oh well perhaps with so many of the other affordable renderman compliant renderes comming out the price will go down.

But oh well here we are trying to figure it out with what we have. so yeah as soon as we have something I will definatly get it to you and the rest of this community.

#46

My offer still stands, I’d share my shader source code with you if you know a shader TD who’s willing to maintain it, update it and keep it running.
I do have a compiled 32 bit version for windows also… with the source code, you could compile the 64 bit version yourself.
I can throw that shader online but…
the thing is I’m a “lighting artist” and that’s just the only mental ray shader I made…
I’m not expereinced enough to maintain it… and throwing it online like that would be… well… “just another unmaintained shader”

as for what that shader does… it’s very simple…
it defines empty slots named “amb, diff, incand, transl, refr, spec, refl” whatever is connected to them is thrown into the buffers 1 to 7.
there’s an extra color slot called “refrWeight” you connect their whatever you’re using as a trasperancy map and the amb, diff, translucency gets weigted aganist it.
every component has two check boxes one for primary rays and one for secondary rays.

the shader computes irradiance and stores it in buffer 8 and it has a color multiplier for irradiance.
the outColor is the addition of all buffers.

as you can see it’s no rocket since… but it might be the kinda thing that’s suitable for a phenomena writer.

-Mina

#47

such a cool idea! *thumbs

but not having the version that compatible with 64bit, plain sucks!

64 bit please, . . . . . . . . only if i know how to compile it myself. not your fault though, the shader need to be in 64 i guess. :confused:

#48

haha. I cant agree any more, rediculous with shader thing for pass. But assume we are in “old thread” about pass stuff of MR now. Whatever we say, whaterver we want, I dont think Autodesk/mental images will give a look to end-user like us . It has been years and what they say only “in our future plan :applause:”

Hope we could work together to bring some thing good enough in production and user oriented.

#49

One more point, any around here experience with XSI? I notice in some XSI screen shot they have PASS OPTION for mentalray, so what the hell with Maya :eek: . I wondered this for such a LOOONG TIME

#50

Been a while since I used XSI, but yes… ever since version 5 there’s 5 check boxes that say… ambient diffuse specular refraction reflection… (I don’t remember what was the last one)
and since version 6 there’s a buffer shader similar to ctrl_buffers and a user friendly interface in ther render options to output buffers.
actually I wonder y such a simple shader that stores buffers isn’t a part of the new mip_* shaders (at least we can be greatful there’s a ray type switch now :wink: wow )

-Mina

#51

And the people rejoiced! For they received a feature that was sure to never get added by Autodesk’s rendering team.

Thank you sir, much appreciated.

#52

Yeah, the mental ray integration into Maya is the worst, compared to XSI and Max. Autodesk probably won’t spend the money to correct this, as they see that competing renderers will eventually push Mental to take care of it, one way or another.

Thanks to the end-user community, and people like Master ZAP, MR has become more approachable than it used to be.

#53

My offer still stands, I’d share my shader source code with you if you know a shader TD who’s willing to maintain it, update it and keep it running.
I do have a compiled 32 bit version for windows also… with the source code, you could compile the 64 bit version yourself.
I can throw that shader online but…
the thing is I’m a “lighting artist” and that’s just the only mental ray shader I made…
I’m not expereinced enough to maintain it… and throwing it online like that would be… well… “just another unmaintained shader”

as for what that shader does… it’s very simple…
it defines empty slots named “amb, diff, incand, transl, refr, spec, refl” whatever is connected to them is thrown into the buffers 1 to 7.
there’s an extra color slot called “refrWeight” you connect their whatever you’re using as a trasperancy map and the amb, diff, translucency gets weigted aganist it.
every component has two check boxes one for primary rays and one for secondary rays.

the shader computes irradiance and stores it in buffer 8 and it has a color multiplier for irradiance.
the outColor is the addition of all buffers.

as you can see it’s no rocket since… but it might be the kinda thing that’s suitable for a phenomena writer.

-Mina

I can convert that to 64bit. And give that shder and it’s source a home. I will see you always get credit for it as well.

the Other Thing is the Z-DOF thing my partner is working on writing a shader to do the same thing. Once those things are in place there is no reasons a 64bit version would not be possible.

#54

thank you!

#55

Hi guys,

Most importantly, much thanks for ghostlake for sharing this. its ppl like you that continue to make cgtalk, and the cg community in general a better place.

I was actually testing out Nuke 5.0, and was actually here looking for some way to output multi channel .exr files from Maya, but came across this instead. Just as well :slight_smile: A feature to consider in the future ?

Anyway, I’ve read through the comments here about the 64bit problem. With regards to the Z-DOF, can I suggest that it be changed to the native maya depth pass shader ? Its already native to Maya, so it would work for both 32 and 64bit versions.

If rendered out at 32 or even 16 bit float iamges, it gives alot of control. I personally would prefere this as my camera focus is not set in stone. Working mostly in TV commercials, its not uncommon for a client to sit next to me while I work… and they are a fickle lot. So something that was infact not ment to be in focus would then later “be in focus” just because it “looks better”.

Just a suggestion, pls dont flame me :stuck_out_tongue:

-K

#56

yeah I forced to agree with you. most post defocusing methods are designed for the ramp to be one way and not ramp in and then back out. I think ZDOF is just more of a pain in the @$$ than it is worth.

The only thing is it would be nice to have everything native to MR for those situations where you want to send it to a MR standalone renderfarm. But when my programmer gets back from vaccation next week he is gonna start on this stuff and I’m sure we can come up with something.

#57

There are mental images shaders in beta for framebuffers. They have not been rewritten for the new API yet. (2008 SP1) So I have had a couple issues with alpha, but they work otherwise for all platforms (everything except Leopard but there’s no new Maya for that anyway).

Autodesk will not release shaders until they have been tested to their standards (whatever that means) which is why the mip shaders are still locked despite having been used since Maya 8.5. So the comment that Autodesk only uses what MI gives them is both true and misleading. . .Zap himself mentioned at SIGGRAPH his shaders would be available. . .and then they were promptly locked out. So to even his knowledge they were complete but Autodesk decided not to make them available (without a hack).

XSI integration of mental ray is the (near) holy grail, but that integration seems to be from the ground up which isn’t the case for Maya. And yes, XSI has passes built-in just like Renderman and Vray, etc. Autodesk has also said the base shaders will have future output like the mia_x. Once all of the shaders operate correctly then a drop down menu would be possible (since it would eliminate the problem of using a shader without the outputs and breaking the pass. Like now, mia_x and one lambert. . .oops.)

It’s not that it cannot be done.

It’s not that it hasn’t been done.

It’s that they are apparently really slow to do it.

Again, the person(s) that would need to be prodded about it would be Autodesk. They have a suggestion and bug link where you can suggest this/report this. I have done it several times for different issues.

Instead of taking the time to type here, type there, fill out the form and explain that it is a much needed and overdue feature that makes you interested in a non-Autodesk product. :buttrock:

#58

I d like to help alot, but your site is terribly slow :expressionless: so I can not see your problem. But to my exp, the tonemap to use must be mia_simple. so then you could apply a gain correct and gamma correct to final composite.

There are a weird thing with composite in FUsion, but I dont know what it is with shake or nuke or sth else but I think any compositor could figure out, that s the diffuse and indirect pass must combine in ADD mode, then other pass is SCREEN.

You could also make gain correct, contrast,etc to other pass to get result better.

#59

@ razorback & calmasacow: I make this tool based on my knowledge only, and I found this Z shader is best for faking DOF, but any chance to make a “floating DOF”, mean we could change focus in compositing, so I could leave out this shader :slight_smile:

#60

@Bitter
Thoundsand times we cry out this, beg for passes output, thounsand topic has been raised, many question was asked, a lot of pain in the @ss, but this still be the same

Why Vray, a new thing, has been so popular, and have many wonderful version. And Vlado is very listenining, he answer, read all the post we make

But as I have mentioned, we are END - USERS, so we dont the the right, and in the list of BIG GUYS.

At the momment, I myself never think we could grasp hand on a pass rendering feature of MR for Maya. I am sure next released of Maya, we will have a frame buffer shader (a very big efford :applause:) , and we still play in the ocean of frame buffer, not PASS, (no we Maya Autodesk dont know what the heck PASS is, in our programing language, only has buffer definition :deal: :D)