(Simple) purchase choice question; rpf's in C3

#1

Hi Combustion boys and girls,

Will C3 allow me to swap a texture map on a 3D rendered model with alternative textures leaving my pretty .rpf specular highlights and cast shadows all intact? I’m trying to figure out the quickest way to knock out a few hundred alternative renders of a scene’s materials without requiring a month of Max/Brazil rendering and my thinking is going down the .rpf route…

Any comments would be greatly apprieciated,

Phil (currently married to AE but considering a flighty romance with combustion…)

#2

Yes it will…I had to do some sequences of playing cards being animated, but it needed 12 different pairs. Using the replace texture feature set to multiply I was able to do one Max render and then replaced them ( was done in Combustion 2, but works the same in 3 ) in Combustion. Feel free to give the demo a try and make sure it will work for your needs.

Hope this helps,
-Eric

#3

Bonza! That’s what I need - when you say ‘replace texture set to multiply’ do you mean an ink effect? Will this mean I’ll have to render a white model with lighting/shadows etc and then apply the new texture as a multiply. Something I can figure out with the demo methinks…

Thanks for the super fast response!

Phil

#4

You have an option of 9 different transfer modes for the Texture Map Operator. On my attempts I tried many different ways and using a white material with texture map set to multiply gave me the best results. You will have to play around some with it as the G-buffer channels will not be anti-aliased so you usually need to use a Gbuffer Material selection to pull the hard edges in and feather them as needed. Then add the texture map on top so it is applied to after the selection. This approach will take a little setup time in Max ( you need to have your UVW Map(s) set up appropriately and the need Gbuffer channels in the RPF file ) and Combustion ( adjusting the gbuffer material selection and texture map operators).

Hope this helps,
-Eric

#5

A big thanks for your input - one problem though - today we just found out that we lost the job to a bigger company our potential client usually works with. Doh - that feeling when it all slips away. Thanks very much though - got me actually having a hack around in the combustion demo finally!

Kind regards,

Phil

#6

…3 months later… C4 demo comes out… Phil reawakens this thread…

Hello Combustion types - opening an old thread I started. I’m yet again evaluating Combustion for a potential job using which will mean using the Texture operator to replace loads of textures. Back in the day, I managed to do a few tests slapping an image over a teapot, all seemed good… However, just downloaded the C4 demo to do some further tests and I cannot for the life of me get the Texture operator to map an image over an RPF file of a simple cube render…

(what I’ve done so far… Mapping applied to my object in Max - switched on all rpf output channels - in combustion’s Texture setting I’ve got the correct material channel selected and all that seems to happen at best is when I select an image to map over my RPF , my simple cube changes to a flat colour)

This seems to be saying to me that combustion is mapping the image incorrectly.

Does anyone have a fool proof method of using rpf’s to replace textures cos either C4 demo don’t work or I’m missing something crucial (which I suspect is the case). Any tippage from your good selves would be lovely!

Kind regards,

Phil - still a dumb AE muppet

#7

There are a couple of reasons I can think of for the issue. The easiest way for me to help you would be to look at the Combustion and 3d program file if possible. What 3d program are you using? Does the object have UV coordinates? Have you examined all the gbuffers in Combustion using the Show GBuffer operator to make sure all needed gbuffers are there?

Hope this helps,
-Eric

#8

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