[calix]

Hi!

Found out that the Custom Alpha Channels are not working as expected. The first one gets rendered fine most of the time, but any additional Channels show different objects. Sometimes they are emtpy. I'm rendering EXRs and check the Channels in Nuke.

Plugin Version 3.1.7 with Maya 2014 and Maxwell 3.1.0.2

Thx!

Calix

[Mihnea Balta]

There are several gotchas with the current implementation of custom alpha channels in the plug-in:

* Custom alphas can be assigned at both the object level and the shape level. The lists are merged together, so if your transform says it wants chan_1, and the shape says it wants chan_2, the object will go to both chan_1 and chan_2.

* The custom alpha assignments are stored in a string attribute on the Maya nodes, as a list of comma-separated names. If you rename a channel in the render options, the names in the string attributes will not be updated, so the channel will not contain what you expect. This is something I want to improve in the future.

Please double-check your channel assignments, to make sure you're not tricked by one of these two conditions. If everything seems ok, please send me a simple scene which reproduces the problem, because in my tests it seems to work fine.

[calix]

Thanks, will have a closer look whats going on!

calix

[calix]

Ok, have it working now in a test scene. But I have to manually select EVERY object and shape in the scene and choose the right Custom Alpha Channel or clean the Attribute. When I create the first Channel in the render settings in a new scene, every single object and shape gets this Channel assigned automatically...even when I push NO when it asks me "Add current selection to the channel?". Even when nothing is selected.

Would be a faster workflow when no Attributes would be set in the first place. So now I have to go over a few hundred objects/shapes and clean the Custom Alpha Attributes...or find some scripter! Exporting/Importing everything would help too.

Thx.

Calix

[Mihnea Balta]

I'll add a dialog which allows setting the alpha channel assignments for all the selected objects at the same time and I'll also solve the issue with renaming channels, but I don't have an ETA for the feature yet.

[calix]

Thanks!

[calix]

Hi!

Here's a little script from a colleague that will clean the Custom Alpha Attribute for a selected hirarchy. Maybe it's useful for non-scripting people like me!

#################################################################################

proc XX()
{
select -hi;
string $selList[] =`ls -sl`;
{
for($i=0;$i<size($selList); $i++)
{

setAttr -type "string" ($selList[$i]+".mxCustomAlphaChannels") "";
}
}

}
XX

#################################################################################

Cheers

[ababak]

Hi!

Here's a little script from a colleague that will clean the Custom Alpha Attribute for a selected hirarchy. Maybe it's useful for non-scripting people like me!

Thanks for sharing, it helps A LOT!

[Gloss]

the current implementation of the Alpha System is very painful and takes to much time.
If this works how it is supposed to, I would be very happy!

best
c

[ababak]

Here's a small script modification that allows to select just everything in the outliner without getting errors about not existing attribute in some nodes.

I wish that random alpha channel assignment bug was fixed in the first place. But for now — this just works for me.

Code: Select all

proc XX() {

	select -hi;
	string $selList[] =`ls -sl`;
	for ($i = 0; $i < size($selList); $i++) {
		if (`attributeExists "mxCustomAlphaChannels" $selList[$i]`) {
			setAttr -type "string" ($selList[$i]+".mxCustomAlphaChannels") "";
		}
	}
}
XX;