Author Topic: Slicer material - keep cap material stationery  (Read 537 times)

2023-04-18, 23:52:17

PixelPusher720

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Hi,
Does anyone now how I can stop the cap material from moving when doing an animation with the slicer material?

https://imgur.com/2kSScht

Thanks for any help!

2023-04-19, 08:37:54
Reply #1

Frood

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Hi,

as always is cases like this: you'd have to setup your textures as world coordinates (CoronaBitmap cannot be set to world coordinates, use standard bitmap nodes for it). However, you could also use CoronaTriplanar with "Mapping space"="World space".


Good Luck



Never underestimate the power of a well placed level one spell.

2023-04-19, 11:08:02
Reply #2

romullus

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Triplanar with world space mapping will work great if your object that's being sliced won't be animated itself, however if you want to animate it, then choose reference node space instead and pick that same object as reference node, that way capped material will stay glued to the object even if the object itself will be moving.
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2023-04-19, 12:16:35
Reply #3

Frood

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And then you are limited to exactly that object when using a slicer? Additionally this creates a dependency loop, do I miss something? And other objects sharing the material/triplanar node would also move their maps if animating the object, wouldn't they?

Anyway, all mentioned solutions are bad workarounds imho. Imagine a ready to render scene where you need to rely on objects UVWs and just want to slice it animated without overriding the cap material. Wouldn't it be a proper solution if the slicer material could use the existing mapping of the sliced object if the slicer object has no map channel(s) and would use the slicer objects channel(s) in case there are any? I fear this is not possible to do though.


Good Luck



Never underestimate the power of a well placed level one spell.

2023-04-19, 14:24:22
Reply #4

romullus

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And then you are limited to exactly that object when using a slicer? Additionally this creates a dependency loop, do I miss something? And other objects sharing the material/triplanar node would also move their maps if animating the object, wouldn't they?

My intention wasn't to provide superior solution compared to yours, i just wanted to tell that there's alternative that may work better if the sliced object itself needs to be animated. If there are multiple sliced and animated objects in the scene, you would need to create multiple slicer materials, that's true, but it's still better than no solution at all. And in case there are no animation, then either world space, or reference node space would work equally well. I don't think there would be dependency loop, but it takes couple minutes to test and if it doesn't work, one can always use linked dummy object as reference node.

Anyway, all mentioned solutions are bad workarounds imho. Imagine a ready to render scene where you need to rely on objects UVWs and just want to slice it animated without overriding the cap material. Wouldn't it be a proper solution if the slicer material could use the existing mapping of the sliced object if the slicer object has no map channel(s) and would use the slicer objects channel(s) in case there are any? I fear this is not possible to do though.

I might misunderstand what you wanted to say, but i don't see how slicer could use existing mapping of sliced object when it creates new surface. One might suggest mapping projection, but when sliced object and slicer object can be of any arbitrary complex shape, it's hard to imagine reliable projection method that would work in most scenarios.
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2023-04-19, 15:53:31
Reply #5

Frood

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My intention wasn't to provide superior solution compared to yours, i just wanted to tell that there's alternative that may work better if the sliced object itself needs to be animated.

Yes, I did not thought differently. These just were just well-intentioned questions arising while reading your reply because I know that sooner or later I have to do exactly something like this, in the past I've been using (animated) slicers only with dedicated cap material in production.

Now I just quickly tested, and I'm not able to use the same node as reference in CoronaTriplanar. Same with a linked box (circular reference).

However, what is working to my surprise is to group the object to be sliced and the reference node. Amazing, because groups are handled as links internally in Max afaik.

I might misunderstand what you wanted to say

Same as you wrote: I cannot imagine that it is technically possible to use the sliced objects UVWs for the cap material. But this would be the only proper solution when slicing some existing scene.


Good Luck



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2023-04-19, 16:55:30
Reply #6

romullus

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Now I just quickly tested, and I'm not able to use the same node as reference in CoronaTriplanar. Same with a linked box (circular reference).

However, what is working to my surprise is to group the object to be sliced and the reference node. Amazing, because groups are handled as links internally in Max afaik.

That's interesting, because i tried it too and it works without issues. I wonder if we're talking about different setups though.
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2023-04-19, 17:45:25
Reply #7

Frood

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I wonder if we're talking about different setups though.

Indeed we do. To my understanding, PixelPusher720 wants to animate a slicer and retain the original material of objects, not using slicer material override and without moving textures. I extended your scene with additional boxes. Two use triplanar as texture node using world space, the slicer does not override the material. Now if you move the slicer, the two boxes using triplanar show the desired result imho. At least that's what I was after.

Now, if you additionally animate the object to slice using world space triplanar map, the map shifts. Avoidable by setting triplanar to a node. Not possible in the objects material due to circular reference. But using a box, grouped with any of those triplanar objects as reference node works.

Edit: looking again at the topic title, I may have misunderstood the issue by just looking at the anim gif. Let's see what OP replies. But I'd like to find a solution to cap a whole scene like this.


Good Luck



« Last Edit: 2023-04-19, 17:51:47 by Frood »
Never underestimate the power of a well placed level one spell.