Krakatoa SR Python Build - Nov. 8, 2011

Deprecated Krakatoa SR Beta Builds
1

Here are the Krakatoa SR builds for CentOS, Ubuntu and Windows from November 8, 2011 as of version 1.9.90.45809.
The Maya PRTtranslator and the Maya to Krakatoa SR Reference Exporter have also been updated to support the new build.

[size=150]Krakatoa SR Change List[/size]

  • New Option “FailOnMissingLicense”. Defaults to False. When set to True, the render will fail if no license can be acquired. When set to False, a Watermark will be rendered like before.

KrakatoaSR_1_9_90_45809_windows.zip
KrakatoaSR_1_9_90_45809_centos.zip
MayaToKrakatoa_PRTTranslator_windows_centos.zip (73.4 KB)
KrakatoaSR_Exporter_20111108.zip (19.1 KB)
The current WIP documentation is provided here.

INSTALLATION ON LINUX:
Currently there is no installer. Provided is one zip file which has a KrakatoaSR.so file (python module) and its .so dependencies, as well as a sample scene. Currently the “.so” files must be in a directory pointed at by both the “PYTHONPATH” and “LD_LIBRARY_PATH” environment variables.

INSTALLATION ON WINDOWS:
Currently there is no installer. Provided is one zip file which has a KrakatoaSR.pyd file (python module) and its .dll dependencies, as well as a sample scene. Currently the .pyd and .dll files must be in the path pointed at by both the “PYTHONPATH” environment variable or be in the c:\python26\DLLs directory.

RENDERING THE SAMPLE SCENE ON LINUX:
Included in the zip file is a sample scene. To render the sample scene:

  • Unzip the contents to a new directory (let’s call it /pathto/krakatoasr/).
  • Open a bash shell and make these four calls:
export PYTHONPATH=/pathto/krakatoasr/
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/pathto/krakatoasr/
cd /pathto/krakatoasr/
python2.6 sample_scene.py

A “sample_scene_output.exr” rendered image should appear in the current directory.

RENDERING THE SAMPLE SCENE ON WINDOWS:
Included in the zip file is a sample scene. To render the sample scene:

  • Unzip the contents to a new folder (let’s call it c:\pathto\krakatoasr).
  • Open a command window and make these three calls:
set PYTHONPATH=c:\pathto\krakatoasr\
cd c:\pathto\krakatoasr\
python sample_scene.py

A “sample_scene_output.exr” rendered image should appear in the current folder.

GENERATING A SCENE FILE:

[size=150]Maya PRT Translator Change List[/size]

  • When the particle system contains an OpacityPP array attribute, the original translator exported it as “Opacity” channel to PRT. Since Krakatoa does not recognize that channel, it was renamed to “Density”. In other words, you can now control the Krakatoa Per Particle Density using the Maya OpacityPP attribute.

MayaToKrakatoa_PRTTranslator_windows_centos.zip

[size=150]Maya Reference Exporter Change List[/size]

  • Added check for the rgbPP attribute in Maya Particle Systems. If found, the Shader’s Diffuse color will not be applied (but will be exported as #remarked line so it can be enabled if desired by removing the #). The Maya PRTtranslator writes the rgbPP channel to the Krakatoa Color channel. This enables per-particle color support! Note that per-particle Density support is also available via the OpacityPP attribute and did not require changes in the MEL script but an update to the PRTtranslator plugin.
  • Fixed exporter to skip hidden objects incl. Lights, Mattes, PRT Loaders, PRT Volumes and Maya Particles.
  • Added Progress Bar with Esc key handling to cancel animation sequence export.
  • Added Exporter Log Level control with “none”, “progress” and “debug” options. “none” prints nothing. “progress” prints major actions. “debug” includes details about partition export that can slow down export a lot.
  • Added option to control the Krakatoa SR behavior when no license can be acquired. Default behavior is “Watermark” which is like before. New behavior is “Fail” which will fail the render if no license can be found. This is useful to avoid watermarked images intermixing with final images due to license server errors.

KrakatoaSR_1_9_90_45809_windows.zip (5.48 MB)
[size=150]NOTE:[/size]
This script is meant as a demonstration of a possible exporter implementation and is not intended for production use.
Please feel free to use any part of it for your own exporter implementations.
The documentation of the tool and its UI can be found here.
To install and use the Reference Exporter,

  • Copy the content of the ZIP file into your Maya/Scripts directory.
  • Customize a shelf with the command: source "KrakatoaSR_Exporter.mel";
  • Assign the icon file included in the ZIP to get the Krakatoa logo in the Maya UI.
  • Load the OBJexport plugin: The script uses the built-in OBJ exporter of Maya to output PRT Volume and Matte Object data. Be sure to set the OBJexport plugin to Load and Auto-Load.
  • Load the PRTTranslator plugin: The script also uses the open source PRTTranslator plugin to export PRT files from Maya particle systems. The PRTTranslator builds for Maya 2011/2012 64 bit on Windows and CentOS are found earlier on this page. Be sure to install this plugin and set to Auto-Load. The source is availble from http://code.google.com/p/ortholab/, but our build is WIP and has been modified slightly.
  • Download the latest build of KrakatoaSR for your operating system. Unzip to a directory of choice (this directory will be used later by the Maya exporter). You can find the latest build here.