United3dArtists Archive

Hello,

I was curious about the benefits and disadvantages of Multiple textures/materials on one object, for multiple texture maps and properties vs just have one texture map and trying to get teh texture wrapped correctly.

Anyone have an opinion on this one? It seems if I used multiple materials with different texture maps it is easier and cleaner to get the right map on the correct sections. IT also allows for different texture properties for shinniness etc... But are there any disadvantages to this?

I noticed others using one texture map for the entire object and splitting it out correctly. Is there a way to get multiple materials and still use the same map?

does this make sense?

It all depends on what render engine you plan to use.

I was considering YArafray here shortly, in order to get the reflections on workspace side, but recently I have just been using the Workspace render option available in TS 7.61. render frames to files then combine in AVI.

I prefer the options that layering multiple textures/shaders give.
I find a single layer very limiting.
Takes all the fun out of texturing.

I was really hoping the 'update' would include multi-layer materials, but it just wasn't meant to be.

The YafaRay4tS 0.8 update will include layered materials -- but it's node based, so you'll have to use the link editor. The 0.8 update will be some time coming, but will also support multi-materials like the workspace DX renderer does, as well.

Currently for YafaRay4tS 0.7 only one single material per mesh is supported, so you'd have to break your mesh up into separate objects if you wanted to use different materials. But there are mapped parameters for the materials supported, so if you UV map your model you can apply bitmaps to affect the way the material looks on the model.

In workspace for DX render, to apply multiple DX materials on your model, you can select the faces you want to apply the material to then click the paint faces tool in the Material Editor.

So for like a HEad with hair. I want the hair and the Skin to have a different SHine. This would not be supported in Yafaray, if I used Multiple Materials and Bitmaps for each? So I would have to have the object of the hair and the skin serperated and then just encapsulated in 3d?

Ok so I decided to GIve Yafaray a try and I think I am missing a step:

Just took one of my basic objects and placed in the seen. Put in a few Yafaray lights, Changed the material over to the Yaf_Shiny_Diffuse and set it to use the a BMP for the difuse map. and it was set to render view.

I ran into a couple issues.
1. WHen I hit render the CMD box opened and closed quickly. I had to hit repeatedly to find the issue. The Render output file's path can not have spaces (Not sure if the underscore would have worked). It was attempting to run C:\Truespace and failing because my path was truespace projects.

2. the external TGA veiwer is setup to lacate TGA_Veiwer in Truespace76\TS\TExtures and failing to find the file. It seems for my install the TGA_Viewer.exe was located in the main Truespace76 directory. I just switched to a custom viewer and defined the path for TGA_Veiwer and that worked.


Now the big one... I can not figure out and I am hoping someone can help.

When I render the basic scene with DX render on workspace I get:

When I render through Yafaray I get:

I know this is probably something simple that I am missing butany help would be greatly appreciated.

The issue with the directories is really weird. Hopefully someone else can confirm. It should look for the external viewer in the trueSpace directory. There's a check box "Leave console open after render" on the setup panel that will keep the output window from exiting when it's done. And I tested with a space in the output filename and that worked fine too...

As to what you're seeing in the image. The ground plane in trueSpace isn't geometry so it doesn't render. You have the background set to gradient in the YafaRay4tS Background panel so the brown you see is part of the ground gradient. If you add a plane to your scene to represent the ground you'll get something more like what you were expecting to see.

Did you apply the material changes with the funnel icon in the Material editor? That looks like it rendered with the default texture.

Edit:
Hmm... a space in the path does seem to cause a problem though... That's really odd since the generated batch file looks fine.

Edit2:
Found it! In the system call to the batch file, the path wasn't wrapped in quotes. Bug related to spaces in the output path is fixed for the next release. Thanks for testing!

cool. I will try it with a plane tonight,

I swithced the material actually in the Link Editor, and did not use the brush, I will try that one tonight.

Is there a reason for the different perspoective that I am missing. If I render Veiw I get a lot smaller image, and if I render CAmera it says it can not locate the camera Obj. I did not have much time to play around with it last night so I am planning on spending mroe time in the help files tonight.

It matches your view as closely as possible, but there will be differences if the height and width of the window are different from the render size. Also currently it only works from the main 3D view window. Additional view windows are ignored.

To use a camera, select a camera in the view or LE and then click on Select Camera in the Camera panel for YafaRay4tS. If you resave your scene and the scene name changes, you will have to reselect the camera because the path will have changed.

Tahnk you for all the help. I have not had as much time as I would have liked tonight to read over the documentation. So I will have to put it off another night, is there more documentation for this somewhere?

If you mean, tutorials. I haven't had a chance to write any yet, so tutorial contributions from users would certainly be welcome.

You may want to also look at the official YafaRay documentation:
http://www.yafaray.org/documentation/userguide/objects"
Even though it's for Blender, much is the same for trueSpace particularly in regards to settings and values.

Also the developer documentation can be helpful since it explains what the different parameters do:
http://www.yafaray.org/development/docu ... parameters"