pflowbox1 mapping object / cant get it to work with vray

[mindworx]

hi,

I am facing a problem with the mapping object feature in the pflow box1 plugin from orbaz (for those who don´t have box1 - mapping object basically takes the mapping of the particle emitter object and assigns the mapping to the particles). It looks like this does not work correctly when used in combination with vray.

The mapping is fine when rendered with the scanline renderer, but as soon as I switch to vray 1.5sp1 the mapping of the particles is broken.

To reproduce, load pflow box1 tutorial file tut_mappingobject_finish.max and switch the renderer to vray - mapping no longer works correctly on particles. When I use the mesher compound on the particles i can get the correct mapping in the rendering. So, I think this is a good indication that the mapping on the particles actually is correct, and the problem is on the side of how vray is dealing with the particle mapping. But maybe I am wrong.

Unfortuately I am dealing with a complex particle setup and rather would not want to use the mesher on top. Rendering with scanline is not a option either.

I tried this in 3dsmax9 and 3dsmax2008 (winXP, 32bit).

Thank you very much.
-michael

[joconnell]

yup this is correct - the particle age map didn't work either until vlado fixed it - I spent ages trying to get a scene working but it never would in vray, as with yours the scanline was fine. As far as I know vray doesn't treat pflow the exact same way that the scanline does in terms of retrieving the data to make and render the particles and there's less chance that vlados code will take into account function that are added in using pflow expansions. He'll have to coordinate with oleg to get box 1 and 3 to get this working.

[vlado]

Because of a deficiency in Particle Flow (no support for mesh vertex velocity), V-Ray has to reconstruct the final particle mesh by itself, instead of using the mesh directly generated by Particle Flow. For this reason, if something changes the way the PFlow mesh is generated, V-Ray will not be aware of it and will not take it into consideration.

As far as I know, both Oleg and Autodesk are aware of this deficiency in PFlow, but it appears that neither of them is interested in providing a fix.

Best regards,
Vlado

[joconnell]

That's a real shame - it seemed a really odd move to have let him go from autodesk, admittedly he seems to have more options on what he can do now but it would have been nice for them to continually develop the base package.

[LarsSonparsson]

Any fix for the problem? Now the mapping object is already part of standard Max.

We really need this feature and want to render with Vray.

[peterC]

I have the excact same issue, and I'm hoping for a fix aswell...any news about this?
- using the mesher object as a hack, but aint getting m blur and good integration...crossing my fingers here

[jstrob]

I want ot use vray to render pflow particles and I want the particle to fade near their death. I tried to use particle age map but it was not working. I saw on orbaz forum it is better to use mapping operator and animate it in U or V and use a gradient ramp (U) or gradient (V) to create the colors but while this is working in scanline it does not work with vray. I wanted to render with vray to becasue I like the motion blur...
Anyone know if there is a way to make particles fade during an event with vray?

[jstrob]

I found a workaround for fading. I created a multi/sub-object material with 16 different materials (cause I want ot fade over 16 frames). the first mat's opacity and spec are at 100% while the last one's are at 0% and the inbetween are inbetween.
I put this material in a material dynamic operator and animated the ID sync by event age. This way I can even see the fading in the viewport. It's just a bit long to create all the materials. Would still be very usefull to be able to read the mapping operator.

[vlado]

V-Ray actually does not use the mesh generated by pflow; in order to get proper rotational motion blur, V-Ray recreates the mesh using information about the individual particles. Unfortunately this ignores any modifications on the texture coordinates done by Particle Flow.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jstrob]

Would Thinking particle behave in a better way with vray in this area?

[re:FORM]

This is a big problem that autodesk should fix if as you say it is a result of the way pflow generates a mesh.

Is this problem limited to vray or do other render engines have the same problem; ie brazil, maxwell, etc ?

[vlado]

Well, other rendering engines have the problem of not accounting for motion blur resulting from particle rotation. I know that mental ray has this issue; wouldn't know about others though.

Best regards,
Vlado

[re:FORM]

Well, I guess we users all need to report this as a problem so that aDesk can escalate it.... or not...

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...linkID=9241177