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Will autodesk ever fix the transparency display problems in maya?

I've been using this darn program for 3 years, and when i started trying out 2012 i was excited with the whole viewport 2.0, hoping it will fix the damn alpha problems.


Well it didn't and its breaking my heart. Sometimes I wonder if I should just go and use 3Dsmax because this problem is really bugging the crap out me. D: And that Xoliul 2 shaders looks too damn sexy, im crying here since you cant get that for maya T_T

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  • jimpaw
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    jimpaw polycounter lvl 9
    DeeKei wrote: »
    I've been using this darn program for 3 years, and when i started trying out 2012 i was excited with the whole viewport 2.0, hoping it will fix the damn alpha problems.


    Well it didn't and its breaking my heart. Sometimes I wonder if I should just go and use 3Dsmax because this problem is really bugging the crap out me. D: And that Xoliul 2 shaders looks too damn sexy, im crying here since you cant get that for maya T_T


    The question is:

    Will Autodesk ever fix maya.
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 19
    Not to mention that we still don't have Shadows in the viewport with CGFX/HLSL shaders.

    Welcome to the club of inferior viewport renderer.
  • BeatKitano
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    BeatKitano polycounter lvl 16
    kodde wrote: »
    Not to mention that we still don't have Shadows in the viewport with CGFX/HLSL shaders.

    Welcome to the club of inferior viewport renderer.

    What are you talking about ? You've got viewport 2.0 ! The next generation, the viewport that all 3d package with viewport 1.0 are jealous of !
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 19
    I'd trade all the fancy MSAA, SSAO, DOF, etc. that comes with VP2.0 for proper shadow support.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Use other tools ;D I worked 2 years with Maya - wasn't a relaxed time :D
  • equil
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    I don't have much experience with max, but I was under the impression that no tool had correct transparency sorting.

    whoops sorry i mean lets have another fuck tool X sucks thread.
  • funshark
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    funshark polycounter lvl 16
    Well, maya has the same transparent sorting algo as max; what is the problem?
  • DeeKei
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    ghooost.png

    WHOOOO ITS A GHOOOOOOOOST


    not really, but it makes it look like its a freaking ghost :/
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 19
    DeeKei> What are will be using your transparency? I don't really see where it will be used in your object. The hair perhaps?

    Anyway, a workaround is to duplicate your shader, have one with transparency and one without. Apply the non-transparency one to your object, and the transparency one to the transparency parts. You can even "chop" up your model into several different objects just for this purpose. At least this will solve parts of your problem.
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 19
    My KoddeShader v2.0 (CGFX) has transparency which might work better for your, but hardly perfect. I think the other popular CGFX shaders for Maya have similar transparency support.
  • chronic
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    chronic polycounter lvl 10
    There is some hope for more Viewport 2.0 features. If you dig through the files there is a lot of unfinished code and interface features that have been commented out. There are stubs for viewport bloom/glow and a few other VP2.0 features. In the CGFX files there are files for cgfx shadow code (including soft shadows), just no way to link the depth maps Maya is using internally.

    What bugs me is that these features are not a priority even though they would be some of the most helpful for studios that do game development. Anyway, it seems that with Maya everything always takes 2-3 iterations to become actually useful.
  • DeeKei
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    kodde wrote: »
    DeeKei> What are will be using your transparency? I don't really see where it will be used in your object. The hair perhaps?

    Anyway, a workaround is to duplicate your shader, have one with transparency and one without. Apply the non-transparency one to your object, and the transparency one to the transparency parts. You can even "chop" up your model into several different objects just for this purpose. At least this will solve parts of your problem.


    Yeah I'll be using it for the hair, and theres fur around the clothes as well. The screen i shown didnt really need transparency, but i was just pointing out the problem.

    @chronic

    That's all fair and nice, but people want the alphas to look properly and shadows to cast out correctly as well. bloom and glow sounds nice but for game devs most of that stuff is done on the actual game engine anyways.
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 19
    chronic wrote: »
    What bugs me is that these features are not a priority even though they would be some of the most helpful for studios that do game development. Anyway, it seems that with Maya everything always takes 2-3 iterations to become actually useful.

    I've been thinking the exact same thing. I mean it's not just for aspiring enthusiasts. Many studios could benefit from being able to get their in-game look or at least close enough in their used 3D Software.
  • bugo
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    bugo polycounter lvl 17
    want a fix for transparency/alpha? Get out of the game industry ;) There's no engine or software without alpha sorting issues. Many of them let you sort by hand / alpha test / 1 bit pass, which somehow fixes the problem
  • chronic
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    chronic polycounter lvl 10
    I listed some examples that show that someone at Autodesk is working on Viewport 2.0. Its seems like there simply are not enough man hours devoted to it.

    As a new viewport renderer (VP2.0) they have the opportunity to re-write the transparency sorting features, for example take a look at the drop-down box in VP2.0 listing sorting methods (although they don't seem to have any noticeable effect).

    The cgfx code/examples like Bloom and Motion Blur are interesting, not because they are directly useful to studio production, (although bloom preview would be useful at my workplace) but because VP2.0 seems to use CGFX as its primary language for high level shading instead of the older Cg. This could open up so many opportunities such as Alpha to Coverage, access to the depth buffer, and other things that could be uniquely useful if only they make it an open, user customizable system.

    At my job we use CGFX shaders to mimic almost exactly the game engine, its so much easier to work this way because of the lengthy procedure needed to get stuff into our engine. The more Autodesk opens up the new viewport to use all of CGFX's features and capabilities the easier it will be to mimic the engine.
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    in the 2012 advantage pack are some new viewport 2.0 features for transparency... v2 is gettin better and better...
  • artquest
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    artquest polycounter lvl 13
    Kodde: I haven't messed with it too much but dmap shadows work fine in viewport 2.0 so what did you mean when you say "proper" shadow support? Do they not work with CGFX shaders?
  • bugo
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    bugo polycounter lvl 17
    oglu wrote: »
    in the 2012 advantage pack are some new viewport 2.0 features for transparency... v2 is gettin better and better...

    Best option is object sorting, if your object is combined to another one it won't make sense. It should try sorting by material basis. It works as in a game engine, it's not an issue, it's just the way it is. Autodesk should support threshold to 1 bit alpha, since most of games nowadays use that as a solution, which doesn't "require" sorting.

    The other options are "simple" and "averaging", which doesn't make much sense for game dev.

    Usually I see alpha planes, or alpha materials using a different mesh in games. Sorting by object in Maya makes sense if you want to display separate objects. Or you choose to separate or you don't have alpha sorting the right way. And yeah, viewport 2.0 supports that now.
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 19
    artquest wrote: »
    Kodde: I haven't messed with it too much but dmap shadows work fine in viewport 2.0 so what did you mean when you say "proper" shadow support? Do they not work with CGFX shaders?

    Not to my knowledge. I know they work with certain light types with Maya's own materials, but not with CGFX.
  • Eric Chadwick
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    Does Maya do alpha blend sorting based on vertex order, like 3ds Max does with its DirectX shader?

    Then you could simply re-order the vertices (by detaching/attaching) to solve the majority of the problems.
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