Maya ShaderFX polygon sorting with render targets?

kodde

Hey guys,

I am working with a skin shader with ShaderFX in Maya. Decided to try the "Blur9Tap"-node and I am assuming you use it in conjunction with render targets right?

I'm getting fairly promising blurred results, however when using the render target functionality I'm having polygon sorting issues. Disabling the "Double sided" option on the Shape-node under Render Stats helped tremendously, but the artifacts in the image below remains. Even worse when you look more to the right as you start to see the inside of the mouth, etc.

Anyone know why and how to solve this?

kodde

A colleague of mine at work told me I needed to use Depth Target Texture as well to get the sorting right. You also need to set the depth textures Target Format to D24S8. Oh happy days!

shaderfx

You are boldly going where no man has gone before :thumbup:

kodde

Haha yeah... I don't know about that :P
But it's definitely pushing my comfort zone a bit.

CreativeSheep

I don't work with Game textures although I do plan on learning ShaderFX, the good thing is you can work in real-time and if you come up with something unique, you can share it or a game studio will want you.

Pookyjuice

Could we use this render target trick to put the first pass thru a custom shader before rendering to screen for post-processing style effects? What would such a shaderfx graph look like? this thread is like a private convo between Kodde and Kees, lol.:poly124:

kodde

Pookyjuice> Haha We'll there's not that many talking about ShaderFX here on PC. Mostly me, GlowingPotato and Kees from what I've seen so far.

You can use the render target to do some trick yes. But there's some limitations afaik. You can't store a full screen pass, only the shading on the model, so you can't do post processing style effects on the entire screen. Also, the render target gets cleared between frame cycles which also limits some potential effects.

I'd love to get these features/issues sorted. Would be fun to create some custom post processing effects. Things such as glow effects would be a given first attempt for me. Glow that goes outside of a models silhouette that is.