hello
I am importing prts from realflow to 3dmax with the prt loader from krakatoa and using frost for meshing the particles.
I need to assign a texture to the mesh, however the texture is sliding and not sticking to the mesh. I know that the prts have texture coordinates,
but frost doesn’t seem to find the texture coordinates,
what is the best way to make the texture stick to the frost mesh? thanks
Can you post at least one of the PRT files to take a look?
The standard UV mapping coordinate channel names in Krakatoa PRT files are
Color = Mapping Channel 0
TextureCoord = Mapping Channel 1
Mapping02 = Mapping Channel 2
Mapping03 = Mapping Channel 3
…
Mapping99 = Mapping Channel 99
If the PRT file does not contain one of these channel names (if for example the channel is called “UV” or something like that), you can add a Krakatoa Magma Modifier to the stack of the PRT Loader and copy the source channel (by typing its name) into the TextureCoord channel expected by Krakatoa and Frost. To see what channels are available in the PRT file, you can open the File Sequence Manager via the [>>] button in the PRT Loader, or open the Particle Data Viewer from the Krakatoa menu and take a look at the data in the file…
Hope this helps!
hello bobo, thanks for your answer
I have attached my test particles, and the screenshot
the “particle Data Viewer from Krakatoa” shows the uvs as TextureCoord. however I dont know how to make them read by frost.
do I have to make a different magma flow setup. right now it is, float ready, TextureCoord --> output, TextureCoord
and under frost material, only “single material ID” says “OK” all others say unsupported.
(I want that a JPG image is locked to the frost Mesh when the mesh is moving)
thanks
I loaded your files and Frost reads them just like expected. When I displayed the Mapping Channel 1 as Color using the Object Properties, I could see very nice and smooth UVs on the Frost mesh.
You don’t need any Magma at all if the channel is already called TextureCoord.
You don’t even need to do anything under the Frost Material ID. We are not doing Material IDs and a Multi-Material here, just one Material with a texture map.
I added a Checker Map with Tiling 4x4 to the Diffuse channel of a Standard Material, assigned the Standard Material to the Frost, pressed the Show Map icon in the Material Editor, and the map appeared on the Frost. Now you have to keep in mind these coordinates might not be what you expected them to look like - they are stretched around and not in any way planar. But the map definitely stuck to the motion of the simulation.
I have no idea why you say it did not stick… 
I did what you said, and didn’t use the prt loader, but loaded the prt files inside frost, and applied a texture to the mesh.
I had this result before, however the texture is not recognizable, this is why I thought magma flow can help.
how can I apply a planer uv map to the frost mesh and make the texture stick to the mesh?
Normally, you must do that in RealFlow. It is not Frost’s fault that the RealFlow coordinates do not look like what you expected. Frost simply takes the UVs RealFlow generated and propagates them to the mesh. The UVs are NOT planar though, so you won’t recognize the image. But they are definitely sticky.
I don’t have enough RealFlow knowledge to tell you how to fix this over there.
The alternative is to duplicate the the PRT sequence in Particle Flow using the Krakatoa PRT Loader and PRT Update, then use the Mapping Object operator to steal UVs from a Plane or something like that, but just once per Event. This means the UVs would hopefully persist from birth and move around according to the RealFlow simulation.
ok thanks, for your help, I will keep testing
Ok, here is an example of what I suggested using Particle Flow:
RealFlow_StickyMapping_v002.zip (46.6 KB)
The file uses your PRT data to create a Particle Flow with the same content.
Whenever a new particle is born, it also steals the UV coordinates of the Plane object.
As the particle continues to move, it keeps that coordinate, so it is the desired Sticky Mapping beyond age of 0.
NOTE: You will have to update the PRT Loader to read the mapping from the correct path, and possibly assign a different texture to the materials used on the PFlow particles, Frost mesh and the Plane.
realflow_stickymapping_particles_v001.mov (4.64 MB)
realflow_stickymapping_particles_v002.mov (3.26 MB)
Then I created a Frost from the Particle Flow and it propagated the mapping coordinates as expected:
realflow_stickymapping_particles_v003.mov (5.08 MB)
realflow_stickymapping_particles_v004.mov (3.44 MB)
Hope this helps.
thanks I will test that
its working thanks
