I am using PBR and I am wondering if is it possible to exclude or include object per pass(image plane)? Something similar to the light list. For example, I want my foreground object to receiver indirect shadows from the background which are in phantom mode but not indirect diffuse. Because the background proxy geometry is in phantom I don't get indirect reflections but I get both indirect shadows and diffuse(color bleeding). Using the reflection mask to exclude the proxy from the foreground geometry will kill both. I thought that by turning the base color of proxy's shader to black will help but still kills both which make no sense, even the object is black can still cast indirect shadow to close objects.

any idea?

You should be using Takes

Rob

circusmonkey
You should be using Takes

Rob

yes this is my backup plan
I was looking for something more efficient.

Hey which methodology are you using for your passes? if it is not takes, is it separate render engines or image planes in your VOPs?

the best thing to remember is that image planes are more material centric. You can do fancy stuff like adding a switch at the end to keep certain parts of a material from displaying, then driving with overrides, but this is not the best way to do it

You can also setup passes using rendering engines (ROP nodes). Simply create a ROP node for each pass, and in the object scope, point it to particular objects that object merge your geos. Then set each of those geometries that are using object merges to either be phantom or not depending on what you want to do in each pass (I think you may be able to force phantom per render engine, but I am not sure…)

I have done this in the past to setu texture bakes (i.e. occlusion) that require a certain mesh with a certain light

hope this helps!

grayOlorin
Hey which methodology are you using for your passes? if it is not takes, is it separate render engines or image planes in your VOPs?

the best thing to remember is that image planes are more material centric. You can do fancy stuff like adding a switch at the end to keep certain parts of a material from displaying, then driving with overrides, but this is not the best way to do it

You can also setup passes using rendering engines (ROP nodes). Simply create a ROP node for each pass, and in the object scope, point it to particular objects that object merge your geos. Then set each of those geometries that are using object merges to either be phantom or not depending on what you want to do in each pass (I think you may be able to force phantom per render engine, but I am not sure…)

I have done this in the past to setu texture bakes (i.e. occlusion) that require a certain mesh with a certain light

hope this helps!

Thanks for the reply. I use a combination of the three but what ever can be done with image planes, I go with that in order to save rendering time. I managed to have almost everything in passes by customizing the Mantra Surface shader. I use different ROPs to split big scenes in smaller parts with the help of takes. It seems that I should go with a new take here….

If you want to cut down on rendering time why are you not just rendering out a set of mattes to use in comp. I built my own custom shaders that by default have a set of mattes built in that can be output with the render.

Rob

Yes Takes are good, but innefficient in cases like mine,

I am making explosions with a lot of debri, small debri, hero debri, big debri, fire, smoke, and the static mesh..

Currently I am seperating them by takes, and in every take some other debri are matte shaded then the volume has a matte shader ( In which I find volume density to be tricky in order to get the right amount of opacity in the alpha for the parts partially inside the volume)

and this way if I have 3 debri and volume I have 4 takes, exporting 4 IFDs for the farm, rendering it 4 times ???????

I am trying to switch to Houdini from Maya. In maya I would do this with contribution passes, in one render. I could get all the possible passes and the volume object, properly seperated from eachother in one render ….

Like I said, I am new to Houdini, dont get me

Please explain me how to do this..

to do this you need to export a new parameter(float if you want it in the alpha)from a shadow matte node inside the shader for the specific object you want. then pick this up as a custom image plane in your rop node, and you could then also single lights out using the light mask option on the image plane.

ps. to make it easy, create a shadow matte shader, and copy the contents inside into your shader, then export your parameter.

i will do a example if you need.