ctrl_buffers

#661

First, thanks Francesca for the fantastic shader[s]…

I’m just having a problem with my scene, but I think there may be no solution - I have buffers set up giving me 9 passes so far and all working fine.

4 of them are for different lights so I can bring them up or down in post but I wanted also to get a SSS pass for each light but of course the shading group for the buffer shader only has the one lightmap slot. Is there any way of setting it up to write to multiple LMaps?

thanks in advance
J

#662

hello.
would somebody be so kind to explain in just a few words what kind of ctrl_buffer nodes I need to seperately render passes coming from layers of a mix8layer node. what do I need besides a buffer_write (which is used a outputshader in the camera)? do I have to pass the layers to a buffer_store node somehow?

cheers
rob

#663

got it… :wink:

anyway. if there’s still some videotutorials out there, please let me know…

thanks
rob

#664

double post…sry

#665

Hey

Well i m relatively a newbie to ctrl.buffers but after reading through first 10 pages of the thread i couldnt figure out one thing… Can ctrl_buffers work without using buffer_api geometry shader? Francesca created it in order not to have a limitation of 8 user frame buffers as i understood only, right ?

The information in the thread is a bit mixed. People explain the setup of the shader by just using buffer_write and store nodes…no api…but in my case it DOES NOT work without buffer_api at all…lets say i dont need in particular situation any unlimited frame buffers, can i get this shader to work without buffer_api node then ?

Does mix8layer buffer output method also has to use buffer_api?

Thanx in advance :slight_smile: and correct me if i m wrong :slight_smile:

#666

Some problems occur when rendering different passes with my shadingnetwork. I have opened up the misss_fast_skin. Now I pipe two misss_fast_shader nodes into buffer_store as well as three misss_specular nodes. ctrl_buffer renders well the spec passes as long as I don’t put the diffuse and scatter passes into the buffer_store. When I do this, the spec & reflection buffers are rendered black. Or let’s put it this way. When I render the seperate shaders with render preview, all works well, all like I would expect. When rendering buffers, the spec passes are rendered differently. For better sampling I put the diffuse shader into primary buffer.

Why does the inbuffer_0 not appear in the buffer_store node? The primary buffer is render.buffer, but where in the AE is framebuffer 0?

And to tie up to LahaS question:
It does not work without buffer_api. MR output throws errors saying

PHEN 0.5 info : ctrl.buffers ----------------------------------
PHEN 0.5 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (14)
PHEN 0.5 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (15)
PHEN 0.5 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (16)
PHEN 0.5 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (17)
PHEN 0.5 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (18)
PHEN 0.5 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (19)
PHEN 0.5 info : -----------------------------------------------

any idea?
cheers
rob

#667

Why does the inbuffer_0 not appear in the buffer_store node? The primary buffer is render.buffer, but where in the AE is framebuffer 0?

buffer0 is reserved by the maya glow.
ctrl.buffer v.3.0 will have some sort of different approach to refer to buffers so that should be no more a kind of inconsistency.

max

#668

It seems that ctrl_buffer does not work when rendering via a renderfarm like RoyalRender. Did somebody try that before?

cheers
rob

**
It works fine. Just found out that I rendered the wrong camera :wink:

ctrl_buffer rocks!! Thanks francesca :wink:

#669

I also don’t get the ctrl_buffers to work in maya 8… Is there a chance to get any information about a date when an update will be released or somekind of fix?! this would be great :slight_smile:

#670

Edit:
Sorry, I was supposed to be writting in a different post, too many windows opened :frowning:

Could anybody post about the difference in using the mia_exposure or the ctrl_buffers as a tone mapper? Is there anyone working better than the other?

I have also read that the gamma correction works better in post so we should disconnect the tone mappers before rendering and apply the good gamma in the 32 bit outputed images. So which would be the best way for applying that correction in post. Probably mia exposure simple is a simple gamma correction but, what about if using a tonemapper (ctrl_buffer)? I guess proper gamma correction and tone mapping are based in different computations, so how do you guys deal with this two issues (gamma and tonemapping) in post?

Thanks in advance

#671

A source code release would be really welcomed at this point.

#672

Is there a difference when the shader shows up as green or red on the viewport. Mine seems to show in red and others scenes that people have posted show up in green. Not a big deal it renders out all the same, was just wondering why that is.

#673

what do I need to use this under maya 8.5? is there a version of it for 8.5? if so where can I get these files?

#674

it also should work with maya 8.5. just stick to the readme when installing…

#675

forgive my ignorance but why is this better than using render layers to out put passes? I mean it seems to be a little more automated. But what are the benifits of doing it this way?

Can someone point me to a walk through of setting up my render to try this. I’m not really understanding how this is used.

Thanks

#676

Hi there,
first of let me thank everyone for all the insights I got reading past this thread over the last two weeks.

Unfortunately I was not able to get CTRL_buffers working in Maya 8.0 even though I tried very hard and several nights long. I followed some of the examples and tried to put some simple scenes together by myself … but couldn’t get any rendered framebuffers out of maya.

That may seem kind of stupid to you, but appearently it’s beyond my knowledge of maya (and/or mental ray).

Francesca was so kind to post several tutorials, but the links were all dead. Does anyone have a link to some of the video tutorials (or any other tutorial for CTRL_buffers)? I saw that there is a very nice tutorial section on mymentalray, but there are no tutorials for CTRL_buffers yet.

Can anybody help, please?

regards Michael

#677

Hi everybody,

I’d like to bother you again. I made some progress with setting up the CTRL_buffers. I found out, that it would probably be the best workflow for me to use the CTRL_buffers in combination with Mix8Layer Shader. Now I’m running in some new problems. I hope that this is not off topic as I’m not sure if this is more a Mix8Layer problem or a general problem with the framebuffer workflow.

I’m trying to render out a specular and a reflection pass. When I activate the “Only FrameBuffers” Option in my Mix8Layer ShaderNetwork you can’t see the specular highlights reflections in either the reflection pass or the specular pass. Somehow that seems to be logic to me, but it means that the reflections of the specular highlights are missing in the final composit.

When I render without checking the “Only FrameBuffers” Option the reflections of the specular highlights appear in the reflection pass. Thus they’re not missing in the composit, but when I adjust the specular highlights in the composit, the reflections of the highlights do not change at the same time.

How do you deal with this kind of problems? Or am I doing something wrong with my setup?

Thanks for your help.

Michael

#678

can someone put this tutorial again in rapidshare or megaupload please…?

it can be this tutorial or any other that shows the workflow for this ctrl buffers…

By the way, can some one tell me if with this i can have render passes for everything?..including transparency, refraction, GI, FG, etc?

Thanks

#679

francesca

Can i use ctrl buffer in maya8.5?

I got the error message:
PHEN 0.3 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (14)
PHEN 0.3 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (15)
PHEN 0.3 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (16)
PHEN 0.3 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (17)
PHEN 0.3 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (18)
PHEN 0.3 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (19)
PHEN 0.3 error 051015: cannot map frame buffer: invalid fb index (20)

I will be appreciated if anyone can upload the scene file that francesca attached to this thread.

#680

@ francescaluce

is the ctrl_buffer tutorial on my mental ray ever gonna get done I cannot figure this thing out.

and the link on here are all dead