Current member status:

[HcRev]

Scene Description:

The scene is currently made up of:
-A sculpted plane with a layered texture made up of a procedural noise map fed into a remap value color utility (first layer) and a png file for the grass (500x500px) (second layer).
- A fluid with:
- texture color
-self shadowed
-shading transparency = .016
-surface: Volume Render
-res = 30:45:30
-vox/s = 10
- Grass fur applied to the sculpted plane with a map wid/height of 256x256 and a density of 3000000.
- Rendering in Maya software Renderer

The problem:

Here is the 4-part image highlighting the problem:
http://flic.kr/p/dBvjQC

- Image1 - When in high quality rendering mode the fluid gains transparency in the viewport..
- Image2 - Viewport renderer set to default.. The fluid appears as it should.
- Image3 - Maya software renderer with default settings - Fur grass layer hidden! The fluid appears as it should.
- Image4 - Maya software renderer with default settings - Fur grass layer unhidden! Fluid gains transparency!

The fluid appears transparent once rendered when overlayed to fur and when in high quality rendering mode in the viewport. WHY?
The fluid appears correct just before the fur layer is composited into the scene..

I am aware that this problem does not occur when rendering in mr and I will be using mr. But I would like to figure out why it occurs when rendering in msr.

Thanks in advance for any replies

[NextDesign]

You really shouldn't be using the high-quality viewport. It's old, and not very complete. The same goes with Viewport 2.0. It's newer, but has issues as well.

[HcRev]

I'll stick to your advise.. Although I've been using the HQ viewport because it enables me to preview the layered texture.

Any thoughts for the software renderer?

I was trying to understand it's functionality.. It seems that it renders the fur separately from the targeted object and then composites once the rest of the scene is rendered out.

- The rendering process starts with the fur being rendered (shown in the script editor)
- then the scene (terrain and fluid) is rendered (in the render view it appears without fur)
- and finally the fur is applied to the scene and the fluid suddenly becomes transparent (the parts of it that directly overlay the fur).

I wonder if there is a quickfix for this or there is a walkaround or at least an explanation.... or maybe it's some kind of technical problem which I should look away from

[HcRev]

To expand on the question providing better examples and more problems!

Hi Society!!

I have been having issues with the viewport renderers in Maya for some time but I now find myself in need of help and hopefully solutions as I reached my threshold of patience I have 3 problems..

The videos pretty much explain themselves but to add to those..
I have a scene with:
a fluid
some geometry
nparticles instancing objects — shards!

Case 1:
Default quality renderer (Video 1), issue with instanced geometry — When simulating or when panning around in the viewport there are some weird artefacts occurring which are the instanced geometries displaying incorrectly and in strange ways.. soooo:
I switch to HIGH QUALITY RENDERER and that problem is fixed!!!!!


but then.....

Case 2:
The fluids appear transparent (Video 2). When directly in front of any geometry the fluids appear transparent.. ok... sooooooo:
I switch to VIEWPORT 2.0 aaaand PROBLEM FIXED

but then......

Case 3:
My instanced geometry and my nParticles disappear! (Video 3)
Video 3 also shows another example of 'Case 1' artefacts when toggling to default renderer!

Has anyone encountered those issues? Are there any explanations. Any advice on how the viewport renderers actually work?

Video 1 — http://www.flickr.com/photos/9111840...in/photostream
Video 2 — http://www.flickr.com/photos/9111840...in/photostream
Video 3 — http://www.flickr.com/photos/9111840...in/photostream

Thanks in advanced!