Use Instancing Engine vs Use Segment Material

[Dragan]

Use Segment Material works only when Instancing Engine is active (both for 2 major render engine Vray & Corona).
I don`t know if Instancing Engine is working in a `global` or `local` manner.
Since you introduced Deform>Force Instance, would it be possible for Instancing Engine to be somehow dynamic?
I`m aware of the Force Instance purpose at the moment (it was my request to be able to override Bend/Slice to have more control in Macro creation).
But it seems that Force Instancing just enables both Bend/Slice at the same time (I assume there is more under the hood).
It will be great if we could have full control over segments behaviour through the Style creation and have the end result as a dynamic workflow using segments with source materials even when Instancing Engine is disabled.
 

[iToo]

That's correct. Use Segment Material is available only when instancing engine is enabled.

But unfortunately it's not possible to change it dinamically. There are completely separated processes for instancing on/off.
When disabled, RailClone just generates a mesh which is processed by Max (as any standard object). Instead, instancing requires to send the segments directly to the render engine (and each renderer may use a different API).
It's not possible to use Segment Material without instancing, because Max doesn't support multiple materials by mesh (a legacy limitation, inherited from the Scanline renderer).

"Force Instance" is not exactly as Bend/Slice off. For example, segments are sliced for Bevels, even if Slice is off.
Instead, Force Instance should keep segments untouched in all cases (if you find some case which is not, please tell us).

[Dragan]

Damn Max...

Thank you, Carlos. Sorry for my crazy ideas
Then I assume this is the same reason why Displacement maps not working through RC.