hi,

i would want to point instance geometry(with delayed read archive procedural shader attached to it) to a point grid. i would also need to control the filename of the archive with instancepoint().

i can easily control parameters on standard surface shader with instancepoint() but how to do it for delayed archive procedural?

i guess i need a material node in the pointgrid sop with a parameter override for the DRA shaders file attribute?

hope this makes some sense..

cheers,
Kustaa

If for example your materials were named

vm_geo_file1
vm_geo_file2


then the following expression would randomly select any one of them for each instance.

vm_geo_file`if(rand(instancepoint())>0.5,1,2)`

Another way would be to use use an instancepoint() driven display switch in a scene context subnet.

thanks for quick reply Soothsayer!

this technique would mean that i need to have one DRA shader for each archive file. would it be possible with just one DRA shader and overriding its file attribute per instance point?

thank you!
K

kustaa
this technique would mean that i need to have one DRA shader for each archive file. would it be possible with just one DRA shader and overriding its file attribute per instance point?

You can use the same expression Soothsayer described if you want to randomly apply geometry to the points.

However, do you want to control exactly what geometry goes on what point? If so, then add an integer point attribute inside your grid object (call it foo). Use whatever technique you want to apply values to this new attribute. At the end of the SOP chain place a null SOP and call it OUT. This assumes your geometry is named nicely like geo1.bgeo, geo2.bgeo, etc.

Then in your shader put the expression in the file parameter something like:
$HIP/bgeo/geo`point(“/obj/grid/OUT”,instancepoint(),“foo”,0)`.bgeo

Does this help?

beautifull!

just the kind of controllability i needed.
thank you guys!