Hy Forum,
i am facaing a task where the krakatoa particles are requested to be rendered in Maya.
Now i can export the particles into the BIN format but this only allows me to export TextureCoords and not color from what i understand.
Is there way to export particles as they are in Max? I am doign a camera projection mapping like in this video vimeo.com/7953841 following the old tutorial by bobo: thinkboxsoftware.com/krak-ca … particles/
now any suggestions on how to get the color into maya? Any help is appreciated!
If you can export the TextureCoord channel, you could copy the Color->TextureCoord via MagmaFlow, then in Maya look for a way similar to the Max Vertex Color Map to feed the mapping into a color channel like the Diffuse of the shader or something like that. I spoke to out Maya TD here and he couldn’t help me with this specific workflow, but I suspect it would be possible.
I tested the workflow in Max (imported the BIN via the RFParticles object, assigned a Standard material with Vertex Color Map set to Channel 1 and got the colors saved by Krakatoa to the TextureCoord channel). Now all we have to do is figure out the equivalent Maya workflow…
How would the magma flow look like to copy texturecoords into color? I don’t have maya here but i could prep some test frames on a simple object and post here.
*You need the opposite - in a KCM, copy the Color into TextureCoord (Input Color → Output TextureCoord).
*Add TextureCoord to the list of channels to save.
*Save to BIN
*If you load with the RealFlow BIN loader object, assign a Standard Material and drop a Vertex Color map in the Diffuse channel set to Channel 1, you will get the color on your particles. You need to find the equivalent to this in Maya (I tried yesterday, but failed).
Will do! Thanks so much. Not having a maya here nor knowing which version the client is actually using made it hard to test for me so far…i might grab a demo of the recent version for testing.
IIRC .bin supports color channel. RF5 writes texture coords, color, normals and a ton of others. You should be able to write straight to color channel.
To confirm I was able to write pflow color straight to .bin color channel. Maybe there something I am missing?
i only have RF4 as BIN cache option. Do i need a realflow component in addition? I dont have RF here. And will have to check which RF client is using…
Loading a BIN sequence generated as suggested by bobo (caching as PRT then copying the color into the texture coords with a KCM and cache as Bin) is white when a vertex color material is applied. Applying a KCM on the BINs to copy texture coords back into color work so the info got carried over.
I was using the RealFlow loader which has half of the UI of a legacy Max particle system with the ability to produce facing particles etc. So it made a MESH and I assigned the Standard material to that, added a Vertex Color Map to the Diffuse slot and the mesh particles rendered with the color from the TextureCoord channel.
I also loaded that BIN using the Maya RealFlow loader which makes a Maya Particle System, but was unable to find a map that converts UVW to RGB (but my Maya Kung-Fu is limited).
i installed the latest RF reader plugin, i dont have RF or maya here. But still can only reproduce bobo’s way. John said with RF5 you can write color among other additional channels, but i have to admit i failed so far getting the info to be read by the RF reader or external sources. Besides the cache size it at a state where it almost makes no sense to transfer the data between offices…i did send john a scene to check out via email.
Guys, keep in mind the PDV could show a Color channel because the PRT Loader produces one if there is no incoming Color from the file. The PDV is taking the render-time data stream, and a PRT Loader will add color to particles using its Object (wireframe) color when no Color channel was read from the file. To see whether a BIN file has a Color channel, use the File Sequence Manager instead.
