Maya for 3D Printing - Rapid Prototyping
In this course we're going to look at something a little different, creating technically accurate 3D printed parts.
# 1 22-03-2012 , 02:09 PM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095

mip_rayswitch IBL_lighting + IBL_reflection

Ahoi!

I´d need a little advice on the mip_rayswitch node and how to properly connect things. there are some threads on the net covering this node but I can´t figure out how to make it work.


TASK:

scene lit with IBL + fg, camera + exposure_photographic.
I need to separate the reflection from the lighting. means when I have a good lighting situation most often the reflections of same hdri looks crappy and vice versa. Essentially I need the same HDRI but with different rotation values for IBL_lighting and IBL_reflection.

So I duplicated the IBL, created the mip_rayswitch and after plugging stuff here and there all my renders are still black.


any help or hint is much appreciated. if possible a screenshot with connections made would be awesome.
thanks in advance!


everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.
# 2 22-03-2012 , 04:11 PM
honestdom's Avatar
The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: London
Posts: 2,381
what is the rayswitch plugged into?

# 3 22-03-2012 , 05:21 PM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095
rayswitch is plugged into the environment slot of my camera so far. I allready tried with physical sun and sky only in the rayswitch and it works fine. but IBL still wont work.

any ideas how to connect IBL with the rayswitch?


everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.
# 4 23-03-2012 , 10:58 AM
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 10
this is how I use rayswitch.. maybe this isn't the perfect way, anyway..

first of all this is my test scene:
user added image

and this is the materials for the sphere and the plane:
user added image

then, in the hypershade, I've created a new rayswitch node and a mia_lookup_sperical (into this node, in the texture value, i've opened my HDR environment image):
user added image

now.. the rayswitch node have multiple inputs:
user added image

EYE is for what you whant so see in the environment of the camera (like an imageplane.. or an IBL standard setup)

ENVIRONMENT is what you see in the reflection of the materials

FINALGATHER is what FG needs to illuminate your scene with your HDR image (in this channel, for a better FG result, you can blur your HDR, and reduce the image dimension to a 1/3 of the original)

this is the result with environment connected but eye and FG not connected
user added image

this with eye and environment:
user added image

this with eye, environment and FG:
user added image

hope this can help you.. and apologize for my really strange english ^_^

Attached Images
# 5 26-03-2012 , 09:31 AM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095
oh, thats nice of you!

what I didn´t catch is where you plugged in the rayswitch -> into the materials shading group(environment) maybe?

I found a solution similar to yours, but I´d like to have a more global workflow in the future, because scenes often consist of like 100 different materials. right now I plug either a mirrorBall with same HDRI (rotated) into the shading groups environment to get different reflections, or the mia_envblur for faster calculation of environmental reflection casted by IBL itself.

to get around the envBall workaround it would be nice to have like 2 IBLs in the scene at the same time and rotate them as needed for global reflection and lighting. I tought that would be possible with the rayswitch, but I think I missunderstood the concept since rayswitch seems to be just a shader for objects, and not a switcher for deviding lighting/reflection.

thx!


everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.
# 6 26-03-2012 , 07:16 PM
honestdom's Avatar
The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: London
Posts: 2,381
make a lambert or something and plug the ray switch into the surfaceShader slot in the shading group.
plug your mia shader into the eye slot on the rayswitch and a chrome reflection result into the reflection slot.
i think you should be able to separate the passes... not 100% tho.

# 7 26-03-2012 , 09:23 PM
Jay's Avatar
Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 6,287
As a suggestion and from experience, why not just do a material overide for the reflection and comp it back later?? Also as another suggestion, is create a blurred convolution map in HDR shop and again do as a separate overide, then again comp later, this would act as an ambient environment color.....it would be faster in the long run too.

Just suggestions....

Jay

# 8 27-03-2012 , 06:10 PM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095
thank you guys for your valuable input!
i have to think about it.


everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.
# 9 02-04-2012 , 09:14 PM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095
Hello again!

I tried to condensate my testings and needs into this one little test scene I´ve aded. the scene consists of a reflective object and a non reflective background plane.

there are 3 stages which show a little bit of the problems I am confronted with. my intention is to skip the reflections given by the IBL and use another hdr to reflect in the sphere.

I made 3 renderlayers with overrides to show the different connections, but just to explain here quickley:

stage1 (IBL reflecting)
- reflective sphere
- background

stage2 (IBL reflecting)
- reflective sphere (no changes)
- background (cutOut Opacity mapped in the shaders advanced tab)

stage3 (envBall reflecting)
- reflective sphere (envBall with different HDR mapped in the shading engines Environment slot)
- background (cutOut Opacity still mapped)

in stage 2 I try to get rid of the sharp reflection line from the background object.
in stage 3 the new envBall environment blends very strangely into the gradient of the background. how can I get rid of this?

and secondly the envBall doesn´t output the HDR same as IBL. I read once that it does some kind of image flipping. but no mather how I flip or rotate the envBall, I can´t get a similar results as from the IBL.

is there a global procedure how to use 2 different HDRIs for FG casting and reflection for all materials in the scene at once? or maybe just for one material working that would already be grat help.

thx

Attached Thumbnails
Attached Files
File Type: zip ReflectionSplitter.zip (611.3 KB, 263 views)

everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.
Posting Rules Forum Rules
You may not post new threads | You may not post replies | You may not post attachments | You may not edit your posts | BB code is On | Smilies are On | [IMG] code is On | HTML code is Off