Vray Triplanar suggestion

[salvadoresz]

Hello, i would have a suggestion for vray triplanar. I use it alot, and the randomize features are crucial for me to beat some of that tiling effect. But right now every time i start 3ds max up, the random seed changes for let's say random rotation, and i loose the interesting distribution that i had before. Would it be possible to implement a randomize button and a random seed input so we can lock down a version of texture projection that we really like? That would be amazing. Thank you

An example: i have an interior scene with big walls, and i used triplanar to "scatter" some stains on it, and i got a real nice "hero stain" that was right in camera view, perfect positioning and angle. But then after restarting my computer, the randomize feature distributed the stains differently, and i never managed to get that perfect shot back.

[Art48]

You can do texture bombing with VRayTriplanarTex? AFAIK the randomization only works per object, not within an object itself, right?

[Vizioen]

You can do texture bombing with VRayTriplanarTex? AFAIK the randomization only works per object, not within an object itself, right?

I use it similarly to salvador for distribution of stains with bercon masks etc. It's not texture bombing but can get you somewhere really fast without having to remap/reposition uvws (even with scripts its a little tedious) but with random rotation/translation from triplanar you can map fe. all the walls with "reflection" stains for example. I have never noticed the change in rotation/.. "seed" however. Didn't know it changed between max sessions. AFAIK this shouldn't be the case and would surprise me if it was so.

[Art48]

Now if VRayTriplanarTex only would support texture bombing. It would be so awesome. Off-Topic: Do you know a reliable, robus, production-read texture bombing plugin for max/vray?

[Vizioen]

Unfortunately no, been searching and asking myself

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

+ 1 to LOCK down the triplanar!!!
This is especially needed if you do animations and need to revisit the scene and add frames etc...
A must

Actually i would have thought that the randomisation reset is a bug!

[gandhics]

Now if VRayTriplanarTex only would support texture bombing. It would be so awesome. Off-Topic: Do you know a reliable, robus, production-read texture bombing plugin for max/vray?

Did u check 3dsMax 2019 OSL maps?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2k2eKCGeyg

Also 3dsMAx native BBM give more options.

[matanov]

+ 1 to LOCK down the triplanar!!!
This is especially needed if you do animations and need to revisit the scene and add frames etc...
A must

Actually i would have thought that the randomisation reset is a bug!

How about if we add "node handle" as a randomization mode?

[Art48]

Did u check 3dsMax 2019 OSL maps?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2k2eKCGeyg

Also 3dsMAx native BBM give more options.

I stumbled upon it, yes. But who's crazy enough to work with 3ds max 2019 in a production environment for the next 3 years?

[salvadoresz]

How about if we add "node handle" as a randomization mode?

Sorry i dont understand, could you please explain how that would work? I would be extremely excited about a bit more advanced triplanar, because that would save alot of time for many of us, we would be able to produce alot more things inside of vray, and not have to jump back and forth from other software. We all know the benefits doing as much as possible within vray.
For me, priority nr.1 would be what we talked about in this thread. Then maybe we can talk about what other features would transform vray triplanar into the ultimate tool. Thank you for looking into this!

[salvadoresz]

Here is a practical example i'm working on right now: I have an interior and exterior scene, and i'm invested into the vray next gpu workflow. If i was to go to lets say substance painter, having 150+ udim tiles, it wouldn't be the most pleasant workflow. Also importing 150 4k tiles for gpu rendering is a bit of a stretch even with on demand mipmapping. But vray triplanar is doing a beautiful and extremely efficient work for me. That said, i do feel that it could be taken to the next level. Just throwing some ideas out there:
1. Controlled and lockable randomization.
2. More distribution options, for example per UV island/ UV tiles and material id. This for me would help me because if i want to, i can set up my uv islands/tiles that are lets say a big wall of Conrete Blocks, and the triplanar projection will project the texture so that it doesn't cross UV islands, or tiles, thus making it look like separate blocks. Now i know triplanar is mostly used for objects that are probably not unwrapped, aka a quick texturing workflow. But more times than not, projects need more than a quick texturing workflow, and objects need to be unwrapped and all that. So vray triplanar could help alot not just with quick texturing needs, but even in more complex production workflows.
3. Texture overlapping. Sorry if any of this sounds stupid. I have alot of experience with user interfaces and user experience. I know texture overlapping can be done with composites. Sometimes when working on software, we looked at very common things users do, that took lets say 10 steps, and we tried to package those into one action, like presets that have sliders and checkboxes to fine tune them to a certain degree. We found that this was more than enough for most users, and advanced users still had the option to do it manually in 10 or 50 steps as they see fit. So basically the software did the heavy but very optimized lifting in the background, and all that most users had to do is tweak some sliders and select a few options. This very roughly translated into vray tripanar would mean: lets say 5 input fields for textures, then vray triplanar would allow you randomly overlap them, and blend them together, basically removing some need of using alot of composite layers, and beating the tiling effect in one shot.

Again sorry if any of this sounds stupid, just throwing some ideas out there.

[salvadoresz]

Not sure if this is possible, but another idea. If vray would know where are the edges of a texture, and instead or in combination with a falloff parameter, it would make an intelligent guess and generate an appropriate sized procedural noise to mask out the edges.

[matanov]

Sorry i dont understand, could you please explain how that would work? I would be extremely excited about a bit more advanced triplanar, because that would save alot of time for many of us, we would be able to produce alot more things inside of vray, and not have to jump back and forth from other software. We all know the benefits doing as much as possible within vray.
For me, priority nr.1 would be what we talked about in this thread. Then maybe we can talk about what other features would transform vray triplanar into the ultimate tool. Thank you for looking into this!

Render IDs are the unique numbers of the nodes in the scene, assigned at the beginning of the render. They are rearranged on every create/remove/copy/etc. operation and even on system restart. They could be different on different render nodes (when using DR). Node handles on the other hand, are unique IDs that are given on node creation and they SHOULD be consistent in your case (you check the Render ID render element).

All of the other suggestions will be considered

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Sounds super!

[salvadoresz]

matanov that sounds awesome. Would it be hard to also implement a randomize button with a seed value to be able to experiment with different random texture "scattering"? Pressing the button could probably randomize all the values that are checked, like rotation, offset, maybe even a random scale value in % (25% scale variation)?