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Hi all,

the Global Alpha Channels is an awesome addition (almost as good as the additive fix ).

Is there a way or mel script to assign one of the Custom Channels to multiple objects?

And can you assign a custom alpha to a shader?

cheers,

Steve

Not sure, but actually it seems like there is a problem exporting custom Alpha from Maya.

Maxwell is not saving it to original render location and it is also not possible to save it from maxwell render interface. So a little hint on how to export / save custom alpha from Maya would be much appreciated.

While I'm rendering I've got that extra small "a" beside other channels like object id and regular alpha. But when I hover the mouse over - it just shows black screen. And no files being saved.

Thanks in advance,
Tim.

Tried opening MXS file and it has custom alpha layers but for some reason they are all empty. So in my case there are 4 custom alpha layers but no objects assigned .. not sure why.
Any ideas ?

From maya, the workflow for custom alpha channels is as follows:
1. Open custom alpha channel window from the maxwell render settings
2. Add the custom alpha channels that you want to create
3. Select the object that you want to add to the alpha channel
4. Go to the Maxwell Render tab in the Attribute Editor and press Pick Channels (next to the Custom Alpha Channels edit box)
5. Select the channels that you want to enable on the object

You can set a custom alpha channel for any object from mel by setting the mxCustomAlphaChannels attribute for the object (it's just a comma separated list of channels).

Also worth mentioning is that custom alpha channels do not get written if they contain no object and that you can change the current custom alpha channel being displayed either from the right click menu or by using Shift + arrow keys.

@Nasok, I've created a scene from scratch, added some custom alpha channels and then added some objects to those channels, saved the scene and loaded it in maya and the custom alpha channels were preserved, can you give me a more detailed way to reproduce the problems you've been having ?

raduc, thanks It's my fault. I was going only half of the way. As I tried assigning custom alpha in MAxwell Studio and it was just you know, clicking on creating a custom channel + selecting objects that you want to add and then click assign or something like that.
So I thought that it works in the same way in Maya .. I was selecting objects and afterwards was clicking to create a custom alpha channel. And I was proposing it should work ..

And now, after you pointed that out - I see, I should've also assign those channels to object in a different way.
Thanks a lot, now it makes sense

I'm just wondering is there any description of this workflow, as I was searching on knowledge base and documentation and couldn't find it.

Thanks again.

Cool, cheers for the info.

Sorry for being dumb here, but can you assign a Custom Channel to multiple selected objects?

What I mean is, if I select 4 pieces of geometry and pick a channel, only one of the objects gets assigned the alpha.

Cheers,

Steve

Manipulating multiple objects at the same time with the UI is not possible right now (but you can script it if you know a bit of MEL). We'll add a shelf button for that, and we'll also make the "add channel" button assign any selected objects to the newly created channel (after prompting the user).

Excellent, cheers Mihnea.

2Mihnea Balta - That would be super helpful.