Chaos Corona Forum
Chaos Corona for 3ds Max => [Max] Feature Requests => [Max] Resolved Feature Requests => Topic started by: pokoy on 2015-01-20, 17:38:19
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Would it be possible to have the same underlying algorithm that is used for the Rounded Corners effect in CoronaMtl as a map that produces a b/w gradient with user defined width and weighting? Similar to AO it could have a map slot to either perturb or modify its output (for example width). That would be great!
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AO in inverted mode?
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Not exactly. AO can produce something similar but what I'm talking about should not be based on occlusion but on distance from edge (so it would also work on flat geometry).
Condition to paint a gradient would be:
- open edge
- edge is adjacent to 2 different smoothing groups.
It could be basically an extension to the CoronaWire Map but with a checkbox to work only on or a combination of:
- selected edges
- smoothing groups boundaries (ie where smoothing group 1 and 2 meet)
- only open edge
and a gradient that extends to a user defined distance like 2 cm, not a solid color.
CoronaWire does something similar when 'All edges' is inactive but it's solic color only.
Something like this is great to produce worn edges, and would work without any occlusion.
I realize a similar thing is available but it's not inverted AO (and it's not a resolved feature request...)
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Just to follow up on this since it's been misunderstood. This map plugin is what I had in mind, only it paints map/color contribution based on concave/convex calculations:
http://boomerlabs.com/cart/product.php?productid=23&cat=9&page=1 (http://boomerlabs.com/cart/product.php?productid=23&cat=9&page=1)
This should show that it's not inverted AO, in fact it's something completely different, and you can achieve things where inverted AO will fail. My initial request was to paint a color/map/gradient where 2 smoothing groups meet, which again is different from this.
Any chance something like this will be natively available in Corona? It's way more versatile than AO (inverted or not) and probably faster to calculate than AO.
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On another note, why was this request moved to 'resolved feature requests' when it was clearly not resolved, and not even properly understood by the moderator?
Am I supposed to recrerate the thread in the feature request section again? You'll probably move it again, so why don't you just leave the thread where it's supposed to be?
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Topics in feature requests and bug reporting sections are moved by Ondra himself. There must have been a firm reason to do so. Maybe this request was duplicated? Now, that you bumped this topic, let's wait for his response for a while. If not, than we can try to gently poke him to this question.
p.s. i was really excited when i saw that curvature map. It's a real boomer that it doesn't work in Corona, though.
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It's a real boomer that it doesn't work in Corona, though.
Whaaat? I'm on holidays now and the first thing I wanted to do when back in the office in Monday was to test it since it does exactly what I'm looking for and there's nothing comparable in Corona yet... Man, that's really disappointing, thanks for the info though. Do you know if it's not possible technically or if Boomerlabs just didn't care to make it work in Corona? I bet a curvature map shouldn't be too hard for a code wizard llike Ondra is, so I still hope to see this as a native Corona map.
On the requests/resolved requests thing - thanks for clarifying. I was under the impression it was moved by a moderator, even before I had the chance to explain what a map like this would do. A short note like 'not possible, rejected' would be useful to let people know they don't need to bother.
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. Do you know if it's not possible technically or if Boomerlabs just didn't care to make it work in Corona?
Don't know. I installed geomaps demo and tried it with different renderers. Scanline renders curvature map just fine, Corona gives incorrect results and Mental Ray sees it as incompatible. Tension map OTOH just crashes max without warning. It's areal pitty, i was looking for similar maps for a long time. I may write to boomerlabs support, let's see what they have to tell.
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Wrote them already, will let you know their response. Hope they consider making it work.
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Got a reply already. Boomerlabs seems to be working on it, news with updates to follow soon. Hopefully they can get it to work, that would be fantastic!
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should be done soon
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Thanks Ondra, this sounds great!
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Got mail that they added support for Corona - dl'ing the demo now!
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Got mail that they added support for Corona - dl'ing the demo now!
Make a write up please :- ) Super interested myself
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Unfortunatelly you can't do pretty much anything with demo, it's extremelly limited. Although i found a way to sort a "hack" it via color correction map, but didn't have time to play with it much. But it sure looks worth attention.
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I only had a brief look but was very happy so far.
Curvature Map
The map itself is pretty self-explanatory and has a bunch of controls for adjusting the angles, offset + gain (basically allowing contrast changes), using different colors/maps for any of the topology curvature types (concave-flat-convex), a section for breaking them up using a map for distortion (disabled in the demo) and controls for smoothing the map so it's accaptable for lower poly geometry (disabled in the demo) - really good stuff!
And you can do what I've been asking for in this thread in the first place - painting a gradient where inverted AO fails, this works on everything that has a hard edge (sm group boundaries too) as long as the mesh resolution isn't too lowres. This is great for blending a map on edges to achieve a worn edges look for example. Another plus is that there's no sampling involved so it gets noise free pretty fast and doesn't come with the pitfalls of inverted AO (different results for different sampling settings, pitch-black occlusion in certain areas with thin double-sided geometry or lots of details etc.)
One thing that's different of course that it will work only per-object since it doesn't involve any ray calculations to produce effects based on object proximity. You can still mix both to achieve this or use AO in the curvature map itself, although I didn't try that.
Tension Map
Didn't look into it, will have a closer the next days. I guess this will show changes based on animation, not useful for stills I guess but useful for anything that blends maps based on topology changes in time: wrinkles, holes, color changes.
There are some minor issues with IR which I have reported, but I'm sure they (or Ondra) can resolve them.
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Hi Folks,
Thanks to all for their interest in GeoMaps. We are aware of some IR challenges are working through them. Stay tuned.
Thanks,
Matt Kaustinen
Boomer Labs, LLC
www.boomerlabs.com
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For those who has max 2016, there's curvature to vert color modifier (http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/chris/curvature-to-vertex-color-modifier-using-max-creation-graph) created with new MCG. While it's nowhere near to geomaps offered possibilities, but still better than nothing.
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I think Ondra would be able to pump out simple curvature map. But curvature map won't do what rounded corners detection does, so it will probably have to be multiple maps. For example, you won't get curvature map working on a simple box in order to do some edge wearing effect.
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You're right.
I think this topic diverged too far from request in first post. So if there's still need for edge map, than it's better to start a new request and leave this topic where it is.
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You're right.
I think this topic diverged too far from request in first post. So if there's still need for edge map, than it's better to start a new request and leave this topic where it is.
I posted the original request two times already, it's been misunderstood and moved to 'resolved requests' almost immediately without waiting for an explanation on how it should work.
If somebody feels like it needs to be requested again, please do, I won't.
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I will try to convince Ondra. It would be really useful to make weathering effects without the usual disadvantages of doing it using AO map.
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The curvature plugin already supports (or will soon) Corona, so this should not be an issue (there is a thread for it on the forum somewhere...)
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The curvature plugin already supports (or will soon) Corona, so this should not be an issue (there is a thread for it on the forum somewhere...)
Yes, it supports Corona and works fine.
It's still not working the same way as the original request, as it needs a reasonably well subdivided mesh and is not as straight forward like the algorithm that drives the rounded corners option of the Corona Material. On some tests it looked like a mixture of inverted AO and Curvature Map will work for most cases, but a dedicated map would still be the best option... Some of the cases I was hoping it would help were not working as I imagined, but I'm still very happy with the Curvature Map.