Crying out loud - Pass Presets

#1

The Pass Presets in Softimage 2010 fly me to the moon version. I don’t know how come it should be so darn easy, when I run the preset and try the results are not what they should be, I’ve looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and looked how to create your own specific pass which I know how to do but when it comes to specific passes that I don’t know, like your regular specular, refractive, reflective etc what parameters do you override and how the heck do you composite such passes ?

#2

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#3

Actually, though still legit, he should checkout the revised version since it has more specifically pertaining to composting 3D elements.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Digital-Compositing-Second/dp/0123706386/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

#4

they really should! compositing passes shouldn’t be black arts.

#5

Why is my name being displayed ? Is there no respect ? That is why I have a handle it just gets me so angry that people think I’m a door mat and they feel because I’m trying to learn just like everyone else they can step on me and treat me like crap which has been going on ever since I’ve tried to join the Softimage community.

MoCaw that suggestion for that book looks very interesting, thank you for that suggestion I will definitely look into it. :slight_smile:

It shouldn’t be black arts, I just would like to know how to create these passes and composite as I don’t have that book in my hands.

I have the entire Softimage Production Series, I also have the MESMER Animation and Modelling Books on Softimage, I also had Ed Harris Rendering Training Video but lost it :frowning: The Softimage Production Series does not list how to create a reflection or refraction pass it does list how to create a specular, global illumination and final gathering pass. I’m dealing with a reflective\refractive object with objects within it so this is why I’m having some problems until I can hopefully soon get my hands on that book but I’m stuck on this problem on creating and compositing these passes.

#6

Well, if you first start out with compositing it sometimes looks like it :wink:
A good example is the massive confusion about premultiplied or non-premultiplied footage and how to deal with it. It pops ups up every couple of weeks on a lot of forums.

But, like 3D, it needs a good basic understanding, as a lot of math is lying underneath it.
Explaining why a comp is comped that way can become quite lenghty, and again confusing for someone just starting.

It would be nice if Softimage at least resurrect the old tutorials in some way, upgraded to the new features.
Lack of tutorials has always been an issue for Softimage, and not getting your basic ‘startup’ tutorials anymore, doesn’t help. No, the DT videos don’t count.
With the FXTree now available to all, it would be nice to have an extensive example of how to create passes, work with channels, and how to work with the FXTree and composite everything. Like the ones of Toxic on the AD website.
It will help out a lot of people.

cheers,

rob

#7

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#8

You name isn’t displayed, but in all honesty, it doesn’t take more than one or two of your posts for people to figure out who you are.

In those regards: Feel free to consider this a one and only warning to both parties. Christopher, please don’t bring the victim attitude and bad blood matured in other places here on CGTalk, it won’t be tolerated.

Everybody else, please either answer his questions or ignore him entirely, but don’t go on a personal crusade. If you have an issue with him as a user, just report his post or write to the moderator of the board he posted something you consider against the forum rules to that forum’s mod, or to CGS’ administration.

I hope this is the last time I have to post about this, and no further action will be required.
Thanks,
Raff

#9

The thing is there are often several ways to pull a channel or get a certain pass you need in SI depending on if you need it just for one object or the whole scene, a material etc.

I happen to really like the pass system in SI, and if it didn’t have it I’d be rendering else where. It’s really powerful once you even grasp 1/4 of it and I have yet to see a better, off the shelf, first party solution.

Is there a particular scene and instance you can give us where you’re trying to get a certain pass from? If you can give us a “for instance” of your scene and image and what exactly you’re trying to achieve we can assist you better.

#10

There is a scene I have where as it’s glass, and I’m trying to render out the following passes.

Specular
Reflection
Refraction

I don’t know how to create these passes in XSI from scratch. I would like to know how to do it manually. I know when creating a diffuse pass you have to override the diffuse_inuse for the object material, but for those passes I listed I have no clue how to do it, manually.

Please & Thank You.

#11

I would have to play around and test a lot to remember how to do those sorts of passes and explain it here. Instead I’d like to recommend render Channels.

Found in the render Manager in the output tab. There is an Output render Channels section with an add button below it. Add the channels you would like:

Diffuse
Specular
Reflection
Refraction

Set the format and such
leave the main one there though.

It’ll render the full image and then without any additional rendering spit out all of the channels at once.

hope that will help…

#12

I was thinking to just go with frame buffers, but it was bothering me that I don’t know how to create the passes :cry:

I realized something, my scene I created in Softimage 7.x when I imported it into Softimage 2010 all the channel buffers did not load. Even creating a specular pass didn’t work, odd. :banghead: The only solution was to import the scene after I had doing some changes in Softimage 2010 and merging the scene into Softimage 2010, then and only then would it work, strange. My theory is even though I did changes in Softimage 2010, there was something written in the scene file from Softimage 7.x and that was causing the minor problem.

Do you have any resources on compositing reflection and refraction passes ? Specifically refraction passes, because it appears as though, they are both the same when rendered out and since I have objects in a refracted object that is what is causing me confusion.

If you or anyone knows how to create reflection or refraction passes, I would like to know it would save on me asking again in the future :):slight_smile:

#13

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