Giant Shaderballs

[snivlem]

Is it possible for Maya to ever have an accurate shader ball that can be blown up like Max?


Image taken from http://www.aleso3d.com/blog

It would make shader work very quick if we had a display port that big with the two lights so we can realtime see gloss maps and the like. Just an idea.

[vlado]

There is V-Ray RT, you can make it as big as you like I see your point though, just not sure how doable this is in Maya.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Interesting idea... I could sort off mock up python script to do that thing - would be a bit complex than standard shader ball tho... like everything in maya

Will let you know once I got something usable.

[snivlem]

That would be interesting DADAL. I tried mucking around with the displayPort form Maya or whatever it's called but I found it limiting and in some cases it was impossible to change the size of it.

I just think a "feature" like this would be extremely useful with shading setup and faster than doing test renders all the time. Like if it was a reproducible shading test sceen based on RT - I think it would lead to more consistent shading networks as well.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

A quick rought mock up so far- quite messy...

Copy to your python tab and execure or make button our of it...

Start = select material 1st (!!!) then click start.

Use RT to test it.

Reset to clean it out.

Let me know if this cuts for start then I might develop it further to clean up render settings and other stuff...

import maya.cmds as cmds

import maya.cmds as cmds

def testShader(*args):
	matSel = cmds.ls(sl=1)
	try:
		cmds.delete('matOBJ')
		cmds.delete('matCam1')
                cmds.delete('matLight')
	except:
		pass
	 
	try:
		cmds.editRenderLayerGlobals( currentRenderLayer='defaultRenderLayer' )
		cmds.delete('matPreview')
	except:
		pass	
		
	cmds.createRenderLayer (name ="matPreview" ,number=1, empty=1,mc=1)
	cmds.polySphere (r= 1,sx= 20 ,sy= 20,ax =(0, 1, 0 ),cuv =2 ,ch= 1,n='matOBJ')
	camName='matCam1'
	cmds.camera(n=camName)
	cmds.move(3.5,2.1,-1.7)
	cmds.rotate(151.715,64.27,180)
	cmds.lookThru('matCam1')
	lit = cmds.shadingNode ('VRayLightRectShape', asLight=True,n='matLight')
	cmds.select('*matLight*')
	cmds.move(0,8,5)
	cmds.rotate(-50,0,0)
	cmds.editRenderLayerMembers( 'matPreview', 'matOBJ', 'matCam1','matLight')
	cmds.select('matOBJ')
	print matSel
	for objects in matSel:
		cmds.hyperShade(a=objects)
	
	
def deleteShaderTest(*args):
	try:
		cmds.lookThru('persp')
		cmds.editRenderLayerGlobals( currentRenderLayer='defaultRenderLayer' )
		cmds.delete('matLight')
		cmds.delete('matCam1')
		cmds.delete('matPreview')
		cmds.delete('matOBJ')
		cmds.delete('VRayLightRect1')
		
	except:
		pass	

cmds.window('testShader')
cmds.showWindow('testShader')
cmds.columnLayout()
cmds.button(l='start',c=testShader)
cmds.button(l='reset',c=deleteShaderTest)

Thanks, bye.

[snivlem]

Wow, many thanks DADAL - the script executes for me on Maya 2014, everything seems to be okay but the shader ball doesn't appear?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Yea at the moment its your viewport window that changed to camera. Then just use vray RT to test shaders.

I'll work tonight on making a pop up window(even tho it will be useless for a while ) so it opens in new place then once viewport RT is out (http://www.mayzie.net/links/maya-v-ray-rt-viewport) u can then do it directly in the window. At the moment it just sets all the basic settings for quick shader preview on the layer and then u have to use Vray RT to preview shaders... I know its not ideal.