walls & tiles compatibilty

[Ondra]

my guess is in VIZ walls & tiles...

[cecofuli]

I think the same, Ondra. But, with this performance, it's impossible to use it!
Also, displacement doesn't work. The "parsing" and "Build acceleration" tasks are very slow when I use this plugin.
Right now, the best solution is render the 3 maps (Diffuse, S, B and D) and use a simple CoronaMTL.

[steyin]

Yeah, displacement is still not working with this plugin, even with the Corona material version.

[VIZPARK]

Yeah, displacement is still not working with this plugin, even with the Corona material version.

Yes, I´m aware of this problem and I´m sorry about it. Somehow the displacement works fine when the displacement map (BerconTile together with Crossmap) is put into a normal Corona material, but it´s not working when the map is put into the scripted Walls & Tiles material (which is based on the CoronaMTL). So my guess is: while parsing the scripted material within corona, the displacement gets lost. It´s not even possible to use any other map within the displacement channel of the scripted material. There is nothing I can do about it I think, because this is happening directly within the renderer.

Ondra, do you know what could be the reason ?

[steyin]

Yeah, displacement is still not working with this plugin, even with the Corona material version.

Yes, I´m aware of this problem and I´m sorry about it. Somehow the displacement works fine when the displacement map (BerconTile together with Crossmap) is put into a normal Corona material, but it´s not working when the map is put into the scripted Walls & Tiles material (which is based on the CoronaMTL). So my guess is: while parsing the scripted material within corona, the displacement gets lost. It´s not even possible to use any other map within the displacement channel of the scripted material. There is nothing I can do about it I think, because this is happening directly within the renderer.

Ondra, do you know what could be the reason ?

Ah I see, thanks for the explanation. Displacement aside the plugin works just fine for me. Trying to get my office to buy it at some point.

[VIZPARK]

I think the same, Ondra. But, with this performance, it's impossible to use it!
Also, displacement doesn't work. The "parsing" and "Build acceleration" tasks are very slow when I use this plugin.
Right now, the best solution is render the 3 maps (Diffuse, S, B and D) and use a simple CoronaMTL.

I agree with you in regards to the speed. Yes, with Walls & Tiles, the performance is much slower than without it. This is natural I believe. If you use simple bitmaps, it´s of course much less calculation while rendering, but in Walls & Tiles we have a little bit more complex shader system. It´s not "very" complex, but the used shaders use up quite a bit cpu time. First there is a heavy composite map, then BerconTile and then Crossmap. Walls & Tiles uses (displacement), bump, reflection and diffuse almost all of them use these shaders. Because Walls & Tiles was made to be flexible with so many options to change the look of a material, the cost of this is performance. That said, it seems like the composite map does use up most of the computing power and it´s not always necessary to use it. I´m anyway thinking about a simplification of Walls & Tiles for some time now and will probably start to implement this soon. This would include a version of Walls & Tiles where a simpler network is used and the performance would be better.

I hope this helps. Please also feel free to email me personally via the support form or via email (on the VP website).

[VIZPARK]

Ah I see, thanks for the explanation. Displacement aside the plugin works just fine for me. Trying to get my office to buy it at some point.

Great! I hope that it can be solved soon.

Aside of this, have you looked at OmniTiles yet ? --> http://www.vizpark.com/shop/omnitiles/

Worth a look and maybe you want to sign up for the beta test ?

[cecofuli]

Yes, because it's unbelievable to have 1/10 (11.000.000 vs 1.800.000 rays!) of the speed, just for a single shader.
I'm sorry, but right now, your nice script, it looks like unusable in real production (cause the slowdonw)
Maybe, it's an idea to make an external software and a bridge from this software to Max.
So, anyone can use your software to create a nice bitmap (Diffuse, S, B and Disp)

[VIZPARK]

Yes, because it's unbelievable to have 1/10 (11.000.000 vs 1.800.000 rays!) of the speed, just for a single shader.
I'm sorry, but right now, your nice script, it looks like unusable in real production (cause the slowdonw)
Maybe, it's an idea to make an external software and a bridge from this software to Max.
So, anyone can use your software to create a nice bitmap (Diffuse, S, B and Disp)

Well, I appreciate your honesty, but I disagree with your statement that Walls & Tiles is unusable in real productions. Hundreds of customers (I won't disclose the exact number) use it in real productions (mainly vray though) and create stunning renderings with it. In vray you´ll also notice a slowdown (I haven´t measured it though) and yet it´s very usable for many.

If you ever created a more complex shader with several nested maps, you will know that these shaders are slower to render in general. If you are used to only using simple bitmaps, of course it´s not slowing down the rendering as much, yet still considering a slowdown of 34% (referring your comparison of no bitmaps vs. loaded bitmaps).

I think you miss some benefits of Walls & Tiles if you suggest to use an external software to create the bitmaps and then use them inside of 3ds max: Walls & Tiles is made for flexibility. You wouldn´t have this flexibility, plus the possibility to save a lot of ram on high resolution textures, if you would use just a replacement of bitmaps with an external editor. Walls & Tiles is half-procedural (using bitmaps and random distribution), which means that it generates large scale textures on the fly while rendering, yet only using the RAM for the single loaded bitmaps. This is the real clue of the product and it wouldn´t be possible with the way you suggested.

Nevertheless, I understand your concern and I promise to think about this and look for optimization. No software is perfect, not even 3Ds Max as we all know ;)

[cecofuli]

VIZPARK, this plug-in is very, very useful. I like it, easy and "fast" for create nice textures. But not in Corona.
1/10 in speed isn't acceptable =(  This is why I wrote that, in Corona isn't usable in production.

I'm happy if in VRay the speed is the same ;-) And I'm sure, you'll find the solution also for Corona! Good luck! (^__^)'

[cecofuli]

Also there is a bug. I'm using the LE version for max 2013.
"Crop original Edges" doesn't' work. I put 65 and 65, but nothing happens.
I think the problem is on VPX MAP. He doesn't recognize the Tiling input.

[VIZPARK]

Also there is a bug. I'm using the LE version for max 2013.
"Crop original Edges" doesn't' work. I put 65 and 65, but nothing happens.
I think the problem is on VPX MAP. He doesn't recognize the Tiling input.

This is a known issue and it´s related to the update of the preview. Please hit the rendering (F9) once and it should work then. Somehow the preview needs an update trigger first and after it should work fine. In the rendering it should work anyway. If not, it´s a new bug and I´ll note it and try to solve it.

[cecofuli]

Thanks VIZPARK. It works now :)