Itoo Software Forum

RailClone => RailClone Pro (*) => Topic started by: Rokas on August 03, 2017, 01:20:56 PM

Title: Sequenced Material
Post by: Rokas on August 03, 2017, 01:20:56 PM
Hi
is it expected behavior for material node to ignore previous material nodes? It was not for me. Documentation also doesn't mention that.
Lets randomize ids 1-10. End then randomize only those segments which have MtlId= lets say 4:

(http://i.imgur.com/bQc4hve.png)
Title: Re: Sequenced Material
Post by: Paul Roberts on August 03, 2017, 01:46:57 PM
Hi Rokas,

Until now that has been the default behaviour. This was useful for example if you had materials setup up on the object from 1 to 3 that you wanted to remap  as follows

1 -.> 1 - 10
2 - > 11 - 20
3 -> 21 - 30

If the material nodes were set up in that order, there would be issues of the first 2 original IDs being re-randomised. Of course you could map them in reverse order to get around that, but both approaches have the potential to cause confusion.

Anyway we will discuss it further here to see if there's a benefit to changing the behaviour. Thanks for reporting it!

Cheers,

Paul
Title: Re: Sequenced Material
Post by: iToo on September 05, 2017, 05:07:40 PM
Hi, i'm checking this issue which was in our to-do list.

RailClone works slightly different from Max modifiers, regarding accumulated transformations (or modifiers).
In Max, the geometry is transformed by each modifier and flows through them. So, if you apply two "Material" modifiers, the geometry IDs are modified in sequence twice.

Instead, RailClone just checks the changes for each operator and computes a "final" transformation, which is applied to the segment only once time.
This method is more efficient, and well suitable for our instancing engine.

But as side effect, Material operators are overwritten when used in sequence, because the IDs of each operator are not computed at all.
Although i know that's not very intuitive, we prefer to keep it as now. An alternative method would be complex to implement.

Thanks,
Title: Re: Sequenced Material
Post by: Rokas on September 05, 2017, 05:22:42 PM
Fair enough.. no problems...
Title: Re: Sequenced Material
Post by: BI1654 on September 06, 2017, 05:55:23 PM
I had no idea it worked like this, always assumed each material operator worked in sequence.
Might be worth rewording or adding some notes to the material operator to make it clear.