RailClone UVW Strangeness

[Mike Truly]

Hi Carlos,

This problem sort of fixed itself but I thought I would post it just in case I'm doing something wrong.

I have a RC object that is a roadway.  The roadway segment object has faces on top that require a UVW modifier to set map channel 2.  In the attached images, you can see the segment object is rendering properly showing gravel on the top of the object.  But when I was trying to render the resulting RC roadway, the scanline renderer was complaining that the RC roadway object needed UVW channel 2 to render.  If I said 'continue' rendering anyway, the resulting render would be wrong and have no gravel on top.  Even though the RC roadway object has the same UVW modifier in the stack.  I tried adding another UVW mod at the top of the stack and set it to channel 2.  Still the rendering complained and would not render correctly.  I deleted off the modifier.  I then started preparing this post but when I went to render again... now the object renders without complaint and is correct with gravel properly showing on top.

Just wondering why the RC object would not render properly with the UVW on the segment object?

Thanks for any ideas!

[Mike Truly]

Come to think of it... the only thing I did after it wasn't working was to do a 'Save Selected' of the problem objects, load in the Save Selected file, noticed that it was rendering properly, loaded up the original file and noticed that it was also now rendering properly.

Hmmm.

[iToo]

RailClone stores an internal reference to Segment's mesh. Although this reference should be updated automatically, sometimes Max creates a new copy of the mesh (for example when converting to editable mesh), and RailClone is not updated.

In these cases, would be necessary to use the "Update all Segments" from the Segments rollout. Reloading the scene also have the same effect.

[Mike Truly]

Carlos,

Thanks for the info... makes sense, but I'm getting a little bit different result.  The 'Update All Segments' button doesn't seem to be working for me in this case.  When I save the file and reload, it works.

For example, I just changed the material that is on the segment object.  When I render the segment object, the material change is shown.  But if I immediately render the RC object that uses the segment... the material change is not shown on the RC object (this is to be expected).  But if I then use 'Update All Segments' button and re-render the RC object, the material change is still not shown.  I try and use the 'UAS' button again and re-render... still the material change is not shown.

I then save the file and then re-load the file and re-render and now the material change IS shown on the RC object.  So it seems the 'UAS' button is not working for me.

Thanks again.

[iToo]

Then it may be a different problem. Please, send us a test scene and the exact steps to reproduce it here.

[Mike Truly]

Carlos,

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to this.  If I can make a test scene that shows this I will... but so far it hasn't happened again and I can't reproduce it.

Thanks!