[Mihai]

This explains the major advantages of deep compositing very well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19w3vkFp5X0

It's like an alpha channel with depth info, so you can isolate an object perfectly in the scene by its depth. Currently NUKE has a plugin for this format, hopefully Adobe or third parties will create one for AE soon.

[Fernando Tella]

Looks cool and needed.

I guess it's useful for stills but specially for films.

[eric nixon]

Thats some great news about 3 One day I hope to see animated weightmaps, you never know...



fake workaround

[dmeyer]

Thats some great news about 3 One day I hope to see animated weightmaps, you never know...



fake workaround

Why couldn't you just use an image sequence in your 3d app?

We use animated textures all the time with Maxwell.

[arch3d]

...but most important question...when ??? (i dont like answer "soon") We are talking about 1 month or 2 ?

[Fernando Tella]

A flexible October was said.

[arch3d]

A flexible October was said.

Ok i miss that thank you.

[eric nixon]

@dmeyer

We use animated textures all the time with Maxwell.

which plugin? , how? do you mean auto conversion of materials, or are you joking?

[dmeyer]

@dmeyer

We use animated textures all the time with Maxwell.

which plugin? , how? do you mean auto conversion of materials, or are you joking?

Maya. Simple image sequence fileIn node.

[eric nixon]

hmmm, ok thanks. erm, you didnt mention any conversion into an mxm. So can I take it from that, that maya has a direct nodal interface for mxm's.. lucky for some.

[Mihai]

But I think this is available for you in C4D as well. If you supply an .mov, the plugin converts the frames to tiffs, so each frame in your animation in fact has a different image applied to the mxm.

[eric nixon]

Ah, so it is conversion based.. yes c4d has that, but it isnt useable, conversion is not allowing much control at all.. I assume maya and c4d plug would convert the same (bad) way, but dmeyer's comment suggests it works well,.. kind of odd?

[Mihai]

What kind of control do you mean?

[dariolanza]

At least in Maya you can animate a layer opacity weight value, and each exported MXS frame will present proper weight value corresponding to the animation of that parameter.

This way you can animate from one material to another.

And in case you need a moving texture, Maya also allows you to import a texture for i.e. Reflect0 being a sequence of files (tga, png..) and synchronizes it with the scene general timeline.

This is the way they are applying animated foam maps on top of sea simulations in RealFlow.

I'm sure your 3D app can handle something similar as well.

Cheers

Dario Lanza

[eric nixon]

It may appear to work in theory, but in practice with c4d its not working guys,.. and I assume all plugins convert native texures roughly the same way.
The conversion with cinema delivers an additive 2 layer mxm with almost no control over any mxm variables OR mxm structure.

This area needs some work IMO