trying to figure out some stuff...

[yossi]

is it possible to use something like a directional light as the sun direction for bella? can’t get it done. very hard to work with just location and date-time. and what is the DST option ??

[yossi]

also getting this error while trying to change materials in one of my scenes to bella materials :

select -r transform84 ;
select -r transform82 ;
select -tgl polySurface6055 ;
select -tgl transform83 ;
sets -e -forceElement bellaLambert4SG;
// Error: line 1: Error while parsing arguments. //

 

* was trying to change some walls to bella lambert white.

[Jeremy Hill]

Bella can indeed use an arbitrary transform for the sun direction, but I have not exposed that in maya yet, I’ll put it on my to-do list.

Regarding the material-assignment error, is this text generated by maya when using the standard method of material assignment (i.e. right-click object > assign material)?

[Jeremy Hill]

Trying to repro the error, I have used these two scripts without a problem:

select -r pSphere1;
select -add nurbsPlane1;
sets -e -fe bellaLambert1SG;

select -r pSphere1;
select -tgl nurbsPlane1;
sets -e -forceElement bellaLambert1SG;

Giving it a non-existent node name in the first line, it reports node not found (Error: line 1: No object matches name: pSphere1x), rather than the “error while parsing arguments” that you show, so I’m not sure what factor I must be missing.

[yossi]

Yup I’ve found that just duplicating the objects and then combining the original and the dup gives a new object that allows material assignment from bella.

[Jeremy Hill]

If you could, I would appreciate knowing a sequence of steps necessary to reproduce the error you showed, so I can try to fix it.

[Jeremy Hill]

Explicit sun direction will be in next build:

[yossi]

sorry for noticing only now, don’t think you can reproduce this error as this happens every now and then in maya as most of my work is done in CAD then imported to maya and manipulated. so maya messes around with the models and nodes names and it occurs.

[Jeremy Hill]

Ah, interesting, well if you happen to find a model that triggers it, I’d sure like to take a look and figure out what is happening.

[yossi]

well I’ve been trying to do some stuff with Bella but it’s simply impossible. I can’t get the way materials work. couldn’t find where bump/normal maps go in a material layout. can’t get the sun to the direction I need as the IPR makes maya crash… I really wanna do something and try a real test drive but without a simply-arranged material library with clear node names and good samples to reverse-engineer, and a simple way to setup the lighting, it’s too hard.

 

[Jeremy Hill]

Every bella material has a “normal” attribute in the Common section, where you may connect either a bumpMap node or a normalMap node, which itself accepts a texture connection on its “map” attribute. I’ll put it on my list to add an example scene (to our sample scenes page) to demonstrate this.

Regarding a crash, I would still need to know some specific set of steps that would produce a crash, so I can debug and solve it. It can often happen that a particular user has a particular workflow that either never, or always, produces such a problem, so it can easily appear to me that there is no problem at all, while at the same time appearing to you that the software doesn’t work at all. Once I know how to reproduce an issue, it usually takes very little time to fix it.

Lastly, as I mention above, setting an explicit sun direction will be possible in the next build, which should hopefully be available within a few days, we are just finishing up a final few things.

[yossi]

I’ll wait for the next build to do a better test then. Lighting setup is something that should take a few minutes and regarding materials, I’ve looked at the sample scenes yet a simple library (sorry to say, like maxwell’s library) helps a lot to just pick stuff and then change a bitmap or so…

[Jeremy Hill]

After this build is out, we’ll continue on the PBR-type material we’ve been working on, as well as another material that is along the lines of the arnold standard surface material. Those will be more amenable to what you suggest.

Regarding lighting, unless you are referring only to the ability to set explicit sun direction, I would like to know more about what you feel is lacking with lighting setup. I ask, because we support the main light types out of the box, and of course mesh-based lights using emitter materials, so I’d like to know what, beyond those, you would like to see.

[yossi]

my lighting setup is very simple… I use physical sun for exteriors (as I’ve noticed that HDR is quit obsolete if you have a good sun model…) and also for interiors (with some emitters in the windows and some in weak spots etc.) so the best workflow is to use something like MR Fire (=ipr?) with a directional light, which is very easy to setup using the eye-target manipulator (“t” shortcut). this way you get good sun light in seconds, and if you’re not happy with it, you can play a bit more and after 5 minutes or less you have a photo realistic perfect lighting. regarding the ipr crash, I think it’s not Bella’s fault as I’ve loaded a few older scenes that were created with Maxwell so maybe it causes a crash …?

[Jeremy Hill]

Thanks, that is helpful. The way I’ve done it at this point is that we can use the rotation of any arbitrary transform to set the sun direction, so you can use a directional light to drive it, no problem. I had not even specifically tested that yet, but hooking a directional light to bella’s sun, I get a shadow match between bella’s sun, and the directional light’s shadows in maya hardware renderer.

Regarding whether bella would crash with a maxwell scene or vice versa, there is nothing specifically related between the two plugins, but any time two plugins are in play, then at least in principle, one may ask maya to do something the other is not prepared for. I don’t have the maxwell plugin, but if you have a scene where you think there could be some conflict, I’d like to take a look.

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