Noob shader install help

[dan_cgi]

Hi guys, sorry for the noob question but could someone kindly help me out. I'm trying to get Mario's glass shader working and i've run into a small problem. I've installed the otl supplied and opened the diamond scene but my render isn't as it should be. I think that i'm mising something important from the install?

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showto...glass&st=24

Also i was wondering, i keep seeing code dotted around the odforce forum and i was wondering how i go about installing these, is it a case of pasting these into a new operator type.

eg; http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showto...rsion&st=12

Really appreciate any help on this.

Thanks

[Alanw]

Hi Dan,

Sorry, I haven't opened the glass hip in a while so I'm not sure what could be giving you problems there. Maybe somebody else can help with that.

As for VEX code snippets. You can compile them yourself using vcc; The VEX compiler. Make sure Houdini's bin directory has been added to your PATH environment variable first. Either that, or you can launch Houdini and open it's command prompt from the menu. This will give you a shell with the proper environment setup for you to use vcc. (Typing in vcc -h will give you a list of all commands for usage.)

The command to create an OTL from shader code is as follows

vcc -L $HOME/houdini9.5/otls/my_shader.otl my_code.vfl

You can either create one master shader OTL in which all compiled shaders are added to, or create a new OTL for each shader. The -L and lowercase -l are the commands to research for doing so.

Also, as you noted, you can paste shader code into a new operator type, but just make sure it compiles successfully. There's a button you can click on the operator type manager to confirm this.

Alan

[_suz_]

hi,

try reversing your normals with reverse SOP and then facet SOP to recompute the normals.

also the background is black - so thats all u'll see - put a background in and u'll see the light being bent

and remember to put a light in the scene

..;D

Edited February 26, 2009 by _suz_

[dan_cgi]

Thanks for that guys, again i hate to ask noobie questions but we've all got to learn from somewhere right!

Alan thats great info, i'll have a look into applying your advice tonight.

Suz, I've tried your suggestions but it still doesn't get the results that i'm after. Image A is the render after i reverse the normals and image B is the reference render that Mario has done. One thing that i have noticed is that as part of the .zip file download there are a couple of files that i haven't used. There's a vfl file which i haven't used as i've installed the otl (do i need to implement this also?) and theres two .h files which honestly i have no clue what to do with! I might get in touch with Mario see if he can shed any light on my situation

Thanks again

Dan

[stevenong]

Hi,

If you can post your hip file, it will be faster for us to see what's different. If you're using Houdini 9.x, it might be the reflection bounce is too low. You can add the Reflection & Refraction Limit properties by going to the Gear icon in the parameters of the object, Edit Rendering Parameters..., type "limit" in the Filter parameter of the left column, expand Mantra 9.5 > Shading, select Reflect and Refract Limit and hit the Right Arrow button to add them to the object. Next, go to the Render > Shading tab of the object & increase the Reflect Limit to 3 for a start.

The last thing to check is the shader. Go to the Refraction & Reflection tabs and make sure the Object Scope is set to "*" (without the double quotes). When Mario made the shader for H8, a blank Object Scope means all objects but H9 made it necessary to be explicit.

Hope the above helps!

Cheers!

steven

[dan_cgi]

Hi Steven, I've tried your suggestions and i think that its defo a scope difference. I've attached the latest render and the scene, its basically the scene supplied in the download glass3 zip file however i am using 9.5.

Cheers

Dan

glass_diamond9.5.rar

Edited February 26, 2009 by dan_cgi