some suggestions

[matthiasm]

• It would be realy great if the f-stop value for the krakatoa camera modifier could be animated.
• A “reflection-amount” channel to control how strong a particle reflects the environment (if “use environment reflections” is turned on ) would be realy usefull too, maybe there is already a way to do that ?
• the implementation of the prt mesher would be also incredible, if you want to mesh a prt file with pwrapper for example, you have to pipe it into pflow and then mesh it. If the prt file gets somewhat more complex, this is realy painfull

also if i copy and paste one ore more channel modifiers to another object, which already has some channel modifiers applied or i copy the entire object with the channel modifiers applied, it happens occasionally that the channel modifiers get screwed up, i am on max 2010 64bit.

[Bobo]

@matthiasm

• It would be realy great if the f-stop value for the krakatoa camera modifier could be animated.

Locate the file “Krakatoa_PRTChannel_Modifier.ms” in the …\Krakatoa\Scripts folder, find the line

fStop type:#float default:2.0 ui:spn_fstop animatable:false

and change :false to :true. Save, restart.

@matthiasm

• A “reflection-amount” channel to control how strong a particle reflects the environment (if “use environment reflections” is turned on ) would be realy usefull too, maybe there is already a way to do that ?

Like the idea, have to wait and see what Darcy thinks about it…

@matthiasm

• the implementation of the prt mesher would be also incredible, if you want to mesh a prt file with pwrapper for example, you have to pipe it into pflow and then mesh it. If the prt file gets somewhat more complex, this is realy painfull

I am pushing for it, but it is more complicated than simply “putting it in there”. I hope it will make it in someday.

@matthiasm

also if i copy and paste one ore more channel modifiers to another object, which already has some channel modifiers applied or i copy the entire object with the channel modifiers applied, it happens occasionally that the channel modifiers get screwed up, i am on max 2010 64bit.

This was reported and I posted a “hack” to fix it for now.
I managed to sort of fix it internally, but it is a complex problem.
In short, when a KCM has exposed inputs (which use a Custom Attribute), when you perform a copy, each modifier has to rebuild its CA to reflect the new trackView controllers being used.
But the way Max updates the command panel when a CA is rebuilt changes the focus to the top modifier, so it gets confused and replaces the whole flow of a KCM.
The current hack is to remark the line

flow = KrakatoaChannelsEditor_Functions.expandFlow internalFlow --fixtracks:true --KrakatoaChannelsEditor_Functions.exposeControlsToModifier this ) )

at the end of the same MS file “Krakatoa_PRTChannel_Modifier.ms” .

As result, you will have to MANUALLY reexpose the inputs to the UI from inside the MagmaFlow (Menu > Expose > Update Exposed Inputs).
In the future update, the KCM will show an Update Exposed Controls button in the Command Panel when reexposure is required, it won’t fix this automagically either because it is simply dangerous.

[anon58450692]

A “reflection-amount” channel to control how strong a particle reflects the environment (if “use environment reflections” is turned on ) would be realy usefull too, maybe there is already a way to do that ?

I would suggest using the Output controls on the Bitmap Texmap you are using as the environment map. The RGB Level should allow you to arbitrarily scale the power of the environment.

[Bobo]

@Darcy

A “reflection-amount” channel to control how strong a particle reflects the environment (if “use environment reflections” is turned on ) would be realy usefull too, maybe there is already a way to do that ?

I would suggest using the Output controls on the Bitmap Texmap you are using as the environment map. The RGB Level should allow you to arbitrarily scale the power of the environment.

This is already documented here:
software.primefocusworld.com/sof … n_maps.php
but IMHO is a big PITA and it is not per-particle, just global. Matthias was asking if it would be possible to modulate per-particle via a dedicated channel?

[anon58450692]

Ahh, i see now. That is not an unreasonable request.

[Chad]

What’s the difference between putting an environment mapped texture on the particles vs rendering with the environment map on? Is it a speed issue? Seems like you could just directly apply to the emission color.

• Chad

[anon58450692]

That’s true, it actually never occurred to me.

[matthiasm]

hey the trick for animatable f-stop value is cool, thank you bobo.

i though a channel for the reflection amount would be cool since you for example could have some prt loaders that do reflect and some do not, or have a gradient of reflectivity on your particles.

Chad, if you just put an environment hdri map into the emission channel you dont get real reflections, do you ? you had to create a custom magma flow for the emission taking into account the normals to get the same result than just activating “use environment reflections” or do i mix something up ?

[Bobo]

@matthiasm

Chad, if you just put an environment hdri map into the emission channel you dont get real reflections, do you ? you had to create a custom magma flow for the emission taking into account the normals to get the same result than just activating “use environment reflections” or do i mix something up ?

I don’t think this is possible, because the particles do not initialize the Normals channel unless the Use Reflections is on. So adding a Map set to Spherical Environment to the Emission channel via Material or KCM does not look up pixels from the environment along the normals but along default normals, producing quite a flat image. Of course, I could be missing something.

[Chad]

matthiasm: The reflections aren’t “real” either way. And both require normals.

Bobo: If that is the case, how does Falloff map work? edit: Falloff is fine, Gradient is fine, InfoTexture is fine, etc… All can get normals without fuss. But the KrakMat doesn’t have any function to do environment mapping, and Krakatoa doesn’t read in reflection maps from other materials. So without a special map to do the environment map lookup, you’d be stuck.

• Chad