Embedding Shaders Inside An Hda

[Visual Cortex Lab]

I'm trying to "otl"lize my fire network which includes POP, VOPs and a SHOP that comes out from a VOP surface shader... but I'm really having some headace by understanding how do I embed such SHOP shader inside the OTL ... I dont care if I need to leave the VOP inside.. what I need is the SHOP but once I create the SHOP from the VOP .. his full "defined by" address is something which wont work if the OBJ is called something else..

where am I doing wrong?

an tips appreciated.. thanks.

[pbowmar]

Hi Jean-Claude,

I suspect the problem is that you're saving out the SHOP with the same name as the VOPnet. I recommend you don't do that, instead prefix your VOPnet with "vopnet_" for the name and "VOPNET " for the label. Then, publish the SHOP the normal way (Create New SHOP Type from VOPnet) and save it to the same OTL as everything else. Make sure to apply this SHOP to the object, not the one from the VOPnet.

This is a continuing problem trying to use VOPs in OTLs. There hasn't been a good resolution to this yet. The issue is, each instance of an HDA that you make creates a _new_ instance of whatever the VOPnet defines, so you can end up with possibly hundreds of instances of the same thing.

Cheers,

Peter B

[one' date=Dec 11 2006, 02:29 PM' post='32540]

I'm trying to "otl"lize my fire network which includes POP, VOPs and a SHOP that comes out from a VOP surface shader... but I'm really having some headace by understanding how do I embed such SHOP shader inside the OTL ... I dont care if I need to leave the VOP inside.. what I need is the SHOP but once I create the SHOP from the VOP .. his full "defined by" address is something which wont work if the OBJ is called something else..

where am I doing wrong?

an tips appreciated.. thanks.

[Visual Cortex Lab]

my actual otl is a SOP subnet... containing all my SOPs... and then a VOP network (VOP_shaders) a SHOP network (SHOP_Shaders) and another VOP network (VOP_SOPs)... when I right click on the VOP shader to create a new SHOW... the new SHOP is created in /shop and i then move it (cut/paste) in my own shopnet.... the names are really different (VOPnet is called VOP_shaders while the vop shader is called "fire") ... the problem is that by middle clicking the shop shader i see that its path definition is a global path .. which will not work if i call the OBJ contaning the otl.. something else that what is called when i create the shop shader... or am I wrong?...

what I tried, but i cant make it working, was to embed the SHOP by saving it as an OTL ... and adding such otl in the SOP otl (edit content->add file) ... and I guess it was possible to assign the shader from the ShaderSOP with something like "opdef:.?shop/myshader" .. but i cant get it working...

I'd like to post my OTL once is finished... but I'd like to solve this problem first... also because... without this shader embedded... the whole OTL is pretty useless... since its a Fire asset.

thanks

[Visual Cortex Lab]

any other ideas on this?

i post here anyway another question.. about OTL Menus...

what i want now is to add a drop down menu that will allows me choose different output visualisations from my OTL ... which is already made by few toggle parameters which drives various switchSOP inside my OTL.... but I now want to enclose those toggles in a Drop Down Menu instead which will be more easy to use...

I used menus already successfully ... but i never used the "script" mode for such menus.. just the "item" mode... and since I need, for any item in my menu, set couple of "opparm . this (that)" i thought that such "script menu" was the best way... could anyone post me an example on how to use such menu scripts?

thanks in advance.

[pbowmar]

Hi Jean-Claude,

Try this: Take out the VOPnet, just remove it from the subnet and put it in /vex. So, when you make the OTL it will not get added.

Then, make the OTL from your subnet. It will be somewhat broken at this stage because the SHOP hasn't been applied but that's OK. Save it to a file called "SOP_MyFire.otl" let's say.

Now, in the VOPnet, do Create New Shop Type from VOPnet. Make a new name for this shop (not just a new label) and save it to "SOP_MyFire.otl". You now have the SHOP as part of the MyFire OTL.

Inside the OTL, add a new SHOP in the SHOP subnet. Apply this as appropriate in a Shader SOP. When you click Apply, the full path will be changed to a relative path.

Now your MyFire OTL is a standalone. If you want people to modify the VOPnet you'll need to supply the VOPnet as a .hip file separately. Just the joy of using VOPnets with OTLs (or actually, not being able to use them).

If this doesn't do it, I don't understand

Cheers,

Peter B

[Visual Cortex Lab]

Thanks a lot Peter,

that worked out pretty well... I just didnt knew about saving differente operator inside the same .otl file ... my bad.

cheers.

[pbowmar]

Yeah, it's not something that is generally a good idea IMHO. However, in this particular case, when you're trying to share something externally, it works out quite well. I look forward to seeing what you've created!

Cheers,

Peter B

[Visual Cortex Lab]

I'm preparing my own reel right no these days ... I'll post this stuff really soon...