Point-based shaders

[maxt]

Hi there,

here first part of a set of shaders to support point-based rendering in mray:

- PCloud_Bake: generic node to bake data to point clouds.
- PCloud_Shade: generic node to read point clouds.
- PCloud_Visualizer: generic node to visualize point clouds (as points or surfels).

- PCloud_Bake_SSScattering: compute and bake SSS to point cloud.
- PCloud_SSScattering: read SSS or compute it at rendertime using point clouds as icache.

- PCloud_Bake_AOcclusion: compute and bake AO to point cloud.

Along some initial documentation, there are also demo scenes to test the shaders.






PCloud Shaders B3 **Win64, Maya2011 only**

ciao, max

[maxt]

Sorry I just realized that the iceberg scene uses a custom shader (mix8layer) that you may find here: http://www.box.net/shared/i6hd2271qk/1/9689142/97236922

btw, you may also use any shader that is able to add together two colors (diffuseSSS+specs).

ciao, max

[maxt]

Beta2 with some bugs lifted. (first post link).

ciao, max

[Remydrh]

Continuation from:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...?f=87&t=915427

If you need some previous discussion, look there first.

Thanks again Max!

[Sagroth]

Thanks for your development.

I've noticed that if R, G or B value of 'diffusion color' of pcloud_bake_SSScattering is equals to 1.0 - render gets black. 0,999 works though.

[Enzo Catalano]

Hey Max, nice work Cool to see mr maps being put to (good) use!

Ciao!

Enzo

[maxt]

Hey Max, nice work Cool to see mr maps being put to (good) use!

Hi Enzo thanks, that's just the begining ! (Enzo is dev of the miMAP module).

I've noticed that if R, G or B value of 'diffusion color' of pcloud_bake_SSScattering is equals to 1.0 - render gets black. 0,999 works though.

Hi, thanks for testing.

If Albedo is one it should be clamped to 0.999 automatically. It's the mean_free_path_lenght that actually aborts the SSS computation and everything else if is 0. Take care that albedo, radius, ior are converted internally to something expected by the SSS computation, if you use extreme param values (high albedo and very low radius) you may get wrong conversions and black outputs (you should find however a line in the verbosity telling you what's going on).

Eventually, when trying to have very low SSS it's better to crank up the diffuse param instead to tweak albedo and radius, as for minimal SSS you need also a very dense pcloud or you'll start to see the construction points.

ciao, max

[jb_alvarado]

Hallo Max,
please can you export me a .mi File from the tree scene, without Geometries? I need your Settings

And also a another question: Can I bake Importons/IP ?

[sus_gr8]

@max
i was testing this with physical sun..
I have some questions regarding this...
When i try point clouds with physical sun without sss does it only bake fg maps?
Or does it also bake other shading information..
What if i have different objects with different shaders
do i need to create mrmap for all the different objects separately
max is there a way i can merge multiple mrmap as one map
also while generating the mrmap my cpu core temp went upto 80 C
i am using an i7 930 proc without any extreme cooling options
is it possible to bake lighting info also as an additional info on the objects
this will be useful while doing set lighting i can bake lighting info
and then just import cameras and render all the camera angles without actually
retracing lol just a thought

[Remydrh]

Max is working on implementing color bleed, reflection, more ao, etc with the point clouds. Right now there's geometry, FG, SSS. So those things can be baked for a single frame or fly-through. The rest is forthcoming.

The map is generated by whatever the shader is assigned to (you can assign more than one object like any other shader). I do not believe there is a way to merge the point clouds yet.

As for your processor temp, that's unrelated other than the fact that any rendering related activity should push your CPUs to 100% and keep them there. If you have what the manufacturer recommends for cooling, you're fine.