2d Texture Switch w/ VrayUserScalar

[9k_JHT]

So I'm trying to switch between 2D Textures. My go-to was the vray switch material (of course), but I couldn't get it to work for this application. I figure the vray switch material is more setup to switch between full shaders as opposed to elements which make up a shader (wishlist that this changes and perhaps an alpha output would be added too. Would be nice to switch between remap nodes, vrayFresnel nodes, etc.).

I then moved to utilizing an animated VrayScaler linked up to condition nodes, linked up to a LayeredTexture node (no textures blended in this node, but visibility is toggled on and off by conditional nodes). See attached image for preview of node setup (recreated this issue in a different scene, hence the simplicity)-



The textures however are not switching at render time. Something isn't updating. I have the base scene archived and can be downloaded by following the link below (https://www.wetransfer.com/)-

http://we.tl/P4kkEIbLIC

Many thanks,
Clayton

Win7 64bit
Maya 2016 64bit Extension 1 + SP4
Vray 3.1


EDIT: I should also add that everything works as planned if I were to render each from individually with animation turned off. This is what leads me to believe this might be a bug.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

Sorry, but the visible attribute of the layer texture can't be animated currently. We have a texture that can directly do this, but it doesn't have an UI, and the "create from vray plugin" would not work for it. So the only way left is to use the "image sequence" feature of the file node.

[9k_JHT]

Sorry, but the visible attribute of the layer texture can't be animated currently. We have a texture that can directly do this, but it doesn't have an UI, and the "create from vray plugin" would not work for it. So the only way left is to use the "image sequence" feature of the file node.

Thank you for getting back to me. I'll look into using the "image sequence" feature in the file node as you recommend.

[Morbid Angel]

you can probably use a blend node for that purpose too no?

[9k_JHT]

you can probably use a blend node for that purpose too no?

I just tried with the VrayBlendMaterial. I do not think that this node was intended (or is set up) to handle 2D textures, but instead full shaders. So unless someone can add to the conversation, I'm going to say that this is not possible with the current VrayBlendMaterial from where I'm standing. If you were suggesting the "blend colors" node, then perhaps that is a viable solution, but only for 2 textures (png, tiff, jpeg, etc..) (which does not help me in my case).

[Dan Andersen]

You can plug the filenodes into a ramp and use a userScalar plugged into the vCoord (if it's a vRamp) of the ramp.

Alternatively, if the filenodes are all the same apart from the file path, you can use vrayUserString attributes to replace paths in the filenode with the <> tags.

Or is it something else you're after?

[9k_JHT]

You can plug the filenodes into a ramp and use a userScalar plugged into the vCoord (if it's a vRamp) of the ramp.

Alternatively, if the filenodes are all the same apart from the file path, you can use vrayUserString attributes to replace paths in the filenode with the <> tags.

Or is it something else you're after?

The ramp with the VrayUserScaler worked out very well. Only thing that it's missing is transfer of an alpha channel as well (just made another ramp to handle alphas). I could not find the VryaUserString you mentioned. Although I don't need it right now since the ramp is working well, it would be neat to have in the arsenal.

Thanks much,
Clayton

[Dan Andersen]

Happy to hear it worked out. Regarding the vrayUserString, have at look at the last section of this page: http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...itmap+Textures

So basically you create a vrayUserString_myFile attribute on the same objects you're now adding scalars to, then put the unique part of the file path/name into this attribute, and link it in the path of the file node inside brackets like this: <myFile>

So you could have:

dir/dir/dir/fileA.jpg
dir/dir/dir/fileB.jpg
dir/dir/dir/fileC.jpg

and then switch out the A/B/C with <myFile> and put those letters into your vrayUserString instead. This will allow you to load a different texture per object from a single filenode. Should handle the alpha too, so if you don't need unique file nodes, this is a very flexible way of working.

[9k_JHT]

Happy to hear it worked out. Regarding the vrayUserString, have at look at the last section of this page: http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...itmap+Textures

So basically you create a vrayUserString_myFile attribute on the same objects you're now adding scalars to, then put the unique part of the file path/name into this attribute, and link it in the path of the file node inside brackets like this: <myFile>

So you could have:

dir/dir/dir/fileA.jpg
dir/dir/dir/fileB.jpg
dir/dir/dir/fileC.jpg

and then switch out the A/B/C with <myFile> and put those letters into your vrayUserString instead. This will allow you to load a different texture per object from a single filenode. Should handle the alpha too, so if you don't need unique file nodes, this is a very flexible way of working.

Very cool. Thank you for the replies.

[Morbid Angel]

Indeed it is. I use this method, I run small script on selected geo and add the desired attrs to that geo then read that as Dan mentioned. It can be in any part of your path string.

string $phx[]= `ls -sl`;

int $num = size ($phx);

for ( $i=0; $i<$num; ++$i )
{


catchQuiet (`addAttr -ln "vrayUserString_ver" -dt "string" $phx[$i]`);
catchQuiet (`setAttr -type "string" (($phx[$i]) + ".vrayUserString_ver") "v01"`);


catchQuiet (`addAttr -ln "vrayUserScalar_wolfId" -at double $phx[$i]`);
catchQuiet (`setAttr (($phx[$i]) + ".vrayUserScalar_wolfId")1`);



};