Home Coding, Scripting, Shaders

Tech Artist - What are you working on: FOREVER Edition!

1313234363756

Replies

  • nyx702
    That's very handy! Thanks so much for sharing.
  • AlecMoody
    Offline / Send Message
    AlecMoody ngon master
    Some simple shaders:

    First, a jumbotron shader that tiles parallax mapped fake bulbs overtop of a render texture:
    mkNON1O.jpg

    A dirt+grass vertex paint shader that automatically creates shadows for the transistion:
    GDjHnQ2.jpg
  • shabba
    Offline / Send Message
    shabba polycounter lvl 15
    ^ Wow very cool Alec. I'm newish to creating shaders(minus some unreal) so excuse my simple question, but what did you make this in? Any keywords I can research would be awesome! Thanks :)

    Script can be found here MAXScript Adventures: Invert Vertex Colors

    Function: Inverts the values of the user selected channel Color, Illum, Alpha. Still needs some love, but works good on meshes /w solid vert color values.

    Invert_VC_Preview3.gif
  • Eric Chadwick
    shabba wrote: »
    I'm new to anything shaders(minus some unreal) so excuse my simple question, but what did you make this in? Any keywords I can research would be awesome! Thanks :)

    I can't talk to Alec's specific setup, but we have some resources here that should help you get started:
    http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Category:EnvironmentTexturing
    http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/MultiTexture
  • Farfarer
    Would be cool if you could match the dimensions of the render texture with the bulbs, then turn off filtering for the render texture, that way you'd get one colour per bulb.
  • CrazyButcher
    Offline / Send Message
    CrazyButcher polycounter lvl 20
    alternatively compute texture coordinate per bulb based on its center. To reduce aliasing effects would not recommend matching the resolutions. But say you render video at 4x the res of the bulb titles, if you then compute the bulb's texture coordinate to lie within the center of 4 texels, you get the average of those 4 rendered pixel and therefore super-sampled image quality.
  • Farfarer
    Yeah, that's probably more sensible :P
  • Tamarin
    Offline / Send Message
    Tamarin polycounter lvl 17
    Hey, I saw a thread a while ago that explained how to get hard transfers edges between textures in a splat-like shader.

    I'm trying to add plaster over brick and I would like to control it in the shader with either vertex color or a mask (or both).

    I can't find the thread now. If anyone can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated
  • Eric Chadwick
  • CrazyButcher
    Offline / Send Message
    CrazyButcher polycounter lvl 20
    NV_command_list, a very cool new blazing fast OpenGL extension was publicly announced today at SIGGRAPH Asia. I am super happy to work on it with two colleagues. No GL spec yet, as we are still refining it, but sample code https://github.com/nvpro-samples/gl_commandlist_basic and will be able to post more of this year's work over there (after writing proper readmes and doing a bit more commenting ;) )
  • Mark Dygert
    Aside from getting ready to switch software packages and engines I haven't been working on too much other than small stuff like this:

    ScaleSpin, it adds a spinner to the curve editor to help you control the position of the scale origin. For regular max objects Monsters scale snap works great, but it doesn't handle all types of controllers so I cooked up this. I was so tired of hunting around for the scale origin when I was using a biped. I was constantly closing/opening the curve editor just to set it back to zero, grr... so much time wasted.

    ScaleSpin.gif
    Standard max UI stuff applies:
    Click and drag the spinner arrows and it will move the scale bar.
    Right click the spinner arrows and it sets it to zero.
    Type in a value and it puts it on that value.
    As an added bonus to the other people using biped, I put two buttons for switching between POS and ROT curves. Sometimes if you open biped's workbench it will lock the standard POS/ROT buttons in the standard curve editor, these buttons won't lock, ever.

    If you have a trackview already open it will add it to it, if not it will create one.

    To install, highlight and drag the text from the window below into your max toolbar, probably right next to your curve editor button, or replace it. Or add a macro header and bind it to a key, whatever...
    (
    	ScaleVal = 0.0
    	try(cui.UnregisterDialogBar Roll_ScaleSnap) catch()
    	try(destroydialog Roll_ScaleSnap) catch()
    
    	CurTV = trackviews.current
    	if CurTV == undefined then (macros.run "Track View" "LaunchFCurveEditor")
    	
    	rollout Roll_ScaleSnap "S-Snap v1.0" width:168 height:36
    	(
    		spinner spn_Scale "" pos:[8,10] width:64 height:16 range:[-1e+007,1e+007,0.0] type:#float
    		button btn_pos "Pos" pos:[80,6] width:40 height:24
    		button btn_rot "Rot" pos:[120,6] width:40 height:24
    		fn scaleSnap = (
    			ScaleVal = spn_Scale.value
    			trackviews.current.scaleValuesOrigin = ScaleVal
    			--hack used to get the trackview to update so the scale line is visible...
    			trackviews.current.showFrozenKeys = true
    			trackviews.current.showFrozenKeys = false
    		)
    		
    		on Roll_ScaleSnap open do (
    			spn_Scale.value = ScaleVal
    			trackviews.current.ui.showTrackWindow = true
    		)
    		on spn_Scale changed val do (
    			scaleSnap()
    		)
    		on btn_pos pressed do (
    			actionMan.executeAction 1038504992 "40120"  -- Biped Curve Editing: Show Pos Curve
    		)
    		on btn_rot pressed do (
    			actionMan.executeAction 1038504992 "40119"  -- Biped Curve Editing: Show Rot Curve
    		)
    	)
    	createdialog Roll_ScaleSnap
    	
    	--Use to dock it in the current trackview
    	cui.registerDialogBar Roll_ScaleSnap parent:trackviews.current.ui.hwnd maxSize:[169,34]
    	cui.DockDialogBar Roll_ScaleSnap #cui_dock_top
    )
    
  • nfrrtycmplx
    Offline / Send Message
    nfrrtycmplx polycounter lvl 18
    howdy folks,

    Added a post to my blog containing my process for setting up texture baking in 3dstudio max for complex objects. This post includes a link to a photoshop script I put together to automate the process of combining these maps back in photoshop.

    http://www.envartist.com/scripting/3ds-max-texture-baking-process/

    I'm looking for feedback on the process and the tool! Thanks!

    Purpose of the tool and the script is to make a workflow that allows for iteration of individual elements of a complex mesh without having to rebake the entire object. At the time of creating this workflow/tool I had a slower PC and rendering would take forever. And combining all these maps back together in photoshop manually took me up to 4 hours (with breaks for food/drink/youtube). The script makes that process 2 minutes
  • lkruel
    Offline / Send Message
    lkruel polycounter lvl 4
    Just released version .2 of my image reference viewer tool. Lets you open a bunch of images and lay it out on your monitor however you want to, not confined to a window.

    Check it out, I'm looking for your feedback,

    Thanks

    Kuadro
  • c.buliarca
    Offline / Send Message
    c.buliarca polycounter lvl 11
    Just released version .2 of my image reference viewer tool. Lets you open a bunch of images and lay it out on your monitor however you want to, not confined to a window.

    Check it out, I'm looking for your feedback,

    Thanks


    Thank you for sharing lkruel, this is a great tool, I was waiting for something like this ever since I've seen refboard, I'm defenetly using Kuadro from now on, the main advantage it has it's that it is not constraint to an window.
    Also as a feature request is it possible to have a shortcut key for "Alaway on top" option, the one from the main menu not from the image menu. Also I've noticed a bug with this option when opening a preset even if the option is checked the images won't stay on top, you have to uncheck and check again the option to stay on top.
    Also another bug will be if you have a preset opend and you will add another image, the added image is staying behind the others and will not go in front when pressing the space key, you have to save the preset and reopen it to manipulate the z order of the preset's images.

    Thank you, great tool and keep up the good work.
  • arvinmoses
    Offline / Send Message
    arvinmoses polycounter lvl 13
    Hi guys! Giving out some substance nodes for those interested.
    You can grab them here:
    http://substance.arvinmoses.com/

    SubstanceTextures2.jpg
    wood.jpg
    screenshot0011.png
  • lkruel
    Offline / Send Message
    lkruel polycounter lvl 4
    c.buliarca wrote: »
    Thank you for sharing lkruel, this is a great tool, I was waiting for something like this ever since I've seen refboard, I'm defenetly using Kuadro from now on, the main advantage it has it's that it is not constraint to an window.
    Also as a feature request is it possible to have a shortcut key for "Alaway on top" option, the one from the main menu not from the image menu. Also I've noticed a bug with this option when opening a preset even if the option is checked the images won't stay on top, you have to uncheck and check again the option to stay on top.
    Also another bug will be if you have a preset opend and you will add another image, the added image is staying behind the others and will not go in front when pressing the space key, you have to save the preset and reopen it to manipulate the z order of the preset's images.

    Thank you, great tool and keep up the good work.

    Hi c.buliarca!

    Thanks for trying the tool out. The original concept for the global always on top was that it wasn't tied to a preset, but I guess you're right. It makes more sense for that option to be tied to the preset. I'll add that in. I'll also fix the bug where a new window doesn't respect the always on top flag.

    Thanks for the idea and reporting the issues! Should have the new version out by the weekend.

    - Luiz
  • c.buliarca
    Offline / Send Message
    c.buliarca polycounter lvl 11
    Hi c.buliarca!

    Thanks for trying the tool out. The original concept for the global always on top was that it wasn't tied to a preset, but I guess you're right. It makes more sense for that option to be tied to the preset. I'll add that in. I'll also fix the bug where a new window doesn't respect the always on top flag.

    Thanks for the idea and reporting the issues! Should have the new version out by the weekend.

    - Luiz

    Hi Luiz,

    thank you for your fast update, it works like a charm, and as another feature ideea it will be cool to be able to show the next or the previous images in the folder of the already opened image, like every other image viewer. Also when i'm trying to open the image directly with kuadro like right click on the image icon in windows, coshe open with... and browse for the kuadro executable, it only opens another instance of kuadro without opening the image itself.

    Thank you.

    Cristian
  • lkruel
    Offline / Send Message
    lkruel polycounter lvl 4
    c.buliarca wrote: »
    Hi Luiz,

    thank you for your fast update, it works like a charm, and as another feature ideea it will be cool to be able to show the next or the previous images in the folder of the already opened image, like every other image viewer. Also when i'm trying to open the image directly with kuadro like right click on the image icon in windows, coshe open with... and browse for the kuadro executable, it only opens another instance of kuadro without opening the image itself.

    Thank you.

    Cristian

    Hey Christian,

    Thanks for the suggestion! I've started implementing it. When you move between images would you prefer for the window to maintain your tweaks in terms of resizing, or would you like the window the fit to the new image.

    For example, if you had a horizontal image open, and then the next image is vertical. Is it more important to maintain your layout or the image to fill the frame?

    I'll also add the open with functionality for the next release.

    Also, I've started a Kuadro thread in this forum, so feel free to post suggestions like this there so we don't hijack this thread =)

    Thanks!
  • DEElekgolo
    Offline / Send Message
    DEElekgolo interpolator
    Made an Ascii ray-tracer if that counts as Tech Art
    3cXESGL.gif
  • Denny
    Offline / Send Message
    Denny polycounter lvl 14
    New patch for Dwarf Fortress?! :poly121:


    Looking good!
  • DEElekgolo
    Offline / Send Message
    DEElekgolo interpolator
    Thanks! I recently ported it to the 3ds!
    LU7AzVz.png
  • Rekmar
    Offline / Send Message
    Rekmar polycounter lvl 19
    working on a tool atm, already got it doing what it was in a second instead of 5 minutes
    i`ll release it for free once its done

    edit: small video that shows the update

    Splines2Hair small update - YouTube
    is there any update on this? I couldn't find any more posts about this and it seems really useful
  • xvampire
    Offline / Send Message
    xvampire polycounter lvl 14
    few days my struggle to familiarize with blender . trying to make it look like my 3dsmax pipeline ....
    not sure it is time worth , but I tried multiple object subsurf toggle on and off with python...

    d3mxDox.gif

    I know i should know blender much more first before trying to spoil myself. with customization to mimic other software...
  • renderhjs
    Offline / Send Message
    renderhjs sublime tool
    I guess its one way to familiarize oneself with blender ;) and I think I would do the same. Just create a panel in python that mimics many of the great features in 3dsMax and then slowly dive into the blender world
  • leslievdb
    Offline / Send Message
    leslievdb polycounter lvl 15
    Rekmar wrote: »
    is there any update on this? I couldn't find any more posts about this and it seems really useful

    nope i havnt continued working on this, i have the framework done but i just need to get back into the scripting mood (which might be after my current project)
  • Rekmar
    Offline / Send Message
    Rekmar polycounter lvl 19
    nope i havnt continued working on this, i have the framework done but i just need to get back into the scripting mood (which might be after my current project)

    oooh :(
    well I hope you get around to work on it again.
    I'm not working on hair atm nor will I do in the near future, but I think hair planes aren't going anywhere soon (not for me at least) and your script shows the kind of workflow I'd love for making hair planes

    if you never get around to finish it would you consider releasing it unfinished?
  • JedTheKrampus
    Offline / Send Message
    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    xvampire wrote: »
    few days my struggle to familiarize with blender . trying to make it look like my 3dsmax pipeline ....
    not sure it is time worth , but I tried multiple object subsurf toggle on and off with python...

    d3mxDox.gif

    I know i should know blender much more first before trying to spoil myself. with customization to mimic other software...

    There's actually a hotkey for that by default. Ctrl+1 sets objects to one subsurf level, Ctrl+2 to two, and so on. Ctrl+0 turns subsurf off.
  • xvampire
    Offline / Send Message
    xvampire polycounter lvl 14
    There's actually a hotkey for that by default. Ctrl+1 sets objects to one subsurf level, Ctrl+2 to two, and so on. Ctrl+0 turns subsurf off.

    yes, I aware that button,

    this one is for one button toggle. ( like pressing tab for smooth and tab aggain to unsmooth ) but probably thee already flip flop function for this somewhere.
  • rollin
    Offline / Send Message
    rollin polycounter
    DEElekgolo wrote: »
    Made an Ascii ray-tracer if that counts as Tech Art
    http://i.imgur.com/3cXESGL.gif


    This is so .. crazy :poly105:
  • xvampire
    Offline / Send Message
    xvampire polycounter lvl 14
    back to 3dsmax ... :p
    [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzjRZcg8zxY[/ame]

    now Im testing out camera bake maxscript with imagemagick http://www.imagemagick.org/ ( its an old stuff but i just knew about it lol ) it can do many kind of image batch processing :D
  • Deadly Nightshade
  • MeshMagnet
    Offline / Send Message
    MeshMagnet polycounter lvl 9
    Thought experiment for automatic low poly mesh creation and uv unwrap from a high polygon model.
    XdcFlXl.jpg
    Haven't started any programming yet, but wouldn't mind any suggestions/critiques/ glaring errors you notice.


    How's this coming along?
    I'd love to see an option where it would automatically split the UV's on 90 degree edges.
  • Arnage
    Offline / Send Message
    Arnage polycounter lvl 10
    I love reading this thread, but it seems to be a bit quiet lately. So here's something I'm working on to fix that:

    [ame]http://youtube.com/watch?v=GypQ3ChaFbw[/ame]
  • Froyok
  • passerby
    Offline / Send Message
    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    Did a little work on a tool for Tech Artists working with Maya and PyCharm as there python IDE. Its Pluing for PyCharm, that lets you excute the current selection in maya or the current documeant with one button. It also Allows view the maya script editor log in PyCharm as well.

    Download - GitHub

    It can be configured in the Settings > Other Settings > mayacharm Settings where you can setup what port number to use and where it will provide you with the command needed in maya to create the command port. Its actions can be accesed via the Run menu.
  • radiancef0rge
    Offline / Send Message
    radiancef0rge ngon master
    oh shiz nice passerby! thanks!
  • passerby
    Offline / Send Message
    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    oh shiz nice passerby! thanks!
    ya when i get time again thinking of a few new features as well. Such as haveing it automacally setup the debugger in maya for using breakpoints and when sending singal line selections have it normalize the indents.
  • monster
    Offline / Send Message
    monster polycounter
    CreateControls.gif

    Simple tool to speed up generic rig controls.
  • Flynny
    Offline / Send Message
    Flynny polycounter lvl 9
    Just been working on a better simpler script loader for use in Maya..
    Docking, un docking, icon or list only.. Any thoughts?

    http://flynnsyard.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/a-simple-script-loading-tool-for-maya.html

    ScriptLoader_V2_gif_1.gif
  • M.Palko
    Offline / Send Message
    M.Palko polycounter lvl 4
    Thought I should start learning maxscript, here's my first one: http://www.martinpalko.com/create-smoothing-groups-from-uv-islands/.

    I know there's others similar, but I found they wouldn't always work in all situations, and sometimes came up with weird results.
  • radiancef0rge
    Offline / Send Message
    radiancef0rge ngon master
    Flynny wrote: »
    Just been working on a better simpler script loader for use in Maya..
    Docking, un docking, icon or list only.. Any thoughts?

    http://flynnsyard.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/a-simple-script-loading-tool-for-maya.html

    ScriptLoader_V2_gif_1.gif

    yooooooooooo
  • Froyok
    Offline / Send Message
    Froyok greentooth
    These last days... weeks... even month to be honest, I have worked on a new script. Basically similar in functionality to what I have made with xNormal, but this time with our own bakers at Allegorithmic.

    I tried to simplify a bit more the usage of the script. One of the most common problem when working with the script for the xNormal version was to export each time to update the bakes properly (and so on). I also now supports multiple meshes at once, which is very handy when processing similar meshes.
    One thing that took me a lot of time was to prevent as much errors as possible right within maya before launching the bakers. (Because there is nothing more frustrating than preparing everything and forgetting one tiny little detail.)

    So you get a little interface that handle a lot of bakers with as few buttons to click on as possible to speed up the workflow.

    Full details over here : http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151048

    1427982306-smt_06.png
  • phungdinhdung
    Offline / Send Message
    phungdinhdung polycounter lvl 12
    a little script I wrote during lunch time today. mirror blend shapes using Maya symmetry modeling functions, which can mirror arbitrary symmetry model

    MBS.jpg
    MBS2.jpg
  • Stromberg90
    Offline / Send Message
    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Been working on this script for sending layer masks between mari and photoshop.

    P9REfc4.gif
  • DumpsterTree
    Hey, so I made a little tool that allows the user to create images in Photoshop and uses the image to place assets into the scene. It uses the red channel to control floor and wall placement, the green channel for props, and the blue channel for height.

    [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3oQWTGitbI[/ame]

    you can check out my thread here:
    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151411
  • Uzziel
    Offline / Send Message
    Uzziel polycounter lvl 7
    Hey, nice tools : )
    I worked on a bridge to quickly send model(s) from 3dsMax to Substance Painter (quickly export/set what is needed).

  • Pedro Amorim
    Been working on this script for sending layer masks between mari and photoshop.

    P9REfc4.gif

    Yes please. Want.
  • marks
    Offline / Send Message
    marks greentooth
    Currently working on a front-end GUI for a substance-designer centric texture production pipeline, kinda similar to a lot of the stuff in Michael Pavlovich's H2A talk at GDC but also supports stuff like batch rendering large quantities of .sbs files using BatchTools. Pretty cool stuff!
  • haiddasalami
    Offline / Send Message
    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    marks wrote: »
    Currently working on a front-end GUI for a substance-designer centric texture production pipeline, kinda similar to a lot of the stuff in Michael Pavlovich's H2A talk at GDC but also supports stuff like batch rendering large quantities of .sbs files using BatchTools. Pretty cool stuff!

    Pics or lies :P Just joking sounds cool. C#? Python?
  • Stromberg90
    Offline / Send Message
    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Sure thing Pedro, I'll send you a pm :)
    Want to release it when it's more fail proof and I figure out what the hell I'm doing.
1313234363756
Sign In or Register to comment.