Maya Plugs and getting shaders to work right.

starfleet · 16th May 04 4:41 AM

Ok some of you may have noticed that when you open up the shader you want to use such as ship.st you only get two items under the shader yet, if you look at the examples you can see at times about 5-10 right?

Do you want to know how you get the shader to look like this? and as such textures to work compleatly right?

well I know PARTLY what the hell is missing, the problem is I can't work out how to get it to form that long list as we see in the HW2 test ships, I mean i can get it to form a line across with everything but not the dropping list.

Below the shader input section is an Extra attributes section and yes, by changing things in here you can change the Attributes of the shader itself,

Now also looking at the shading script its inital sett up has

Code:

static Texture $diffuseOn
static Texture $diffuseOff
static Texture $glowOn
static Texture $glowOff

for the thrusters.st

and

Code:

static Texture $diffuse
static Texture $glow

Now for those who use maya that last one is definatly well nice and 'normal' it's the only two you ever see.

But if you look at say again the Hiigaran Carrier file we have you see that ship.st should also be possible to list

Code:

Texture $shadow
Texture $normals
Texture $normalizationCube
Texture $enviromentCube
Texture $passThrough 3d
Colour $teambase
Colour $teamstripe
Colour $keyLight
Colour $fillLight
Colour $ambient

this is further backed up in the ship.st file on lines 4, 25, 49

Code:

 line 4

simple base(Texture $diffuse, Texture $glow, Colour $teambase, Colour $teamstripe, Colour $fogColour, Colour $addColour, Colour $shadowColour)

line 25

simple light(Texture $diffuse, Texture $glow, Colour $teambase, Colour $teamstripe, Colour $fogColour, Colour $addColour, Colour $shadowColour)

line 49

simple fog(Texture $diffuse, Texture $glow, Colour $teambase, Colour $teamstripe, Colour $fogColour, Colour $addColour, Colour $shadowColour)

So the question on the shaders that we should be asking isn't more of relic didn't give us the right stuff.. and BUT what did they leave out? I mean the info on assigning textures etc is VERY VERY poor in the relic info, they do not tell you much about the shaders at all, you have to remember that..

So does any one out there know how to get maya to produce a list of static instead of a string from the attribute line?

-Rob

**Unicron** · 16th May 04 4:58 AM

This isn't a problem at all.

You don't have to use ship.st, just duplicate the sample shaders and use in your scene.

starfleet · 16th May 04 5:19 AM

yeah but some of us want to be able to work from scratch uni which is why i ask these types of questions :P i mean yeah i could save out all the sample shaders and use them but i shouldn't have to.. i should be able to load in the extra attributes.

The problem is that all relic gave info on doing was pointing to the shaders yet they also seemed to forget to tell us what the shaders are for.

ie it's clear that thruster.st is for thrusters on things like the hiigaran carrier cause it uses that shader

It would be nice if Mecha or some one would tell us
1. what each shaders is for
2. what the attributes of each shader are
3. how to load those attributes in.

**evillejedi** · 16th May 04 10:14 AM

looking at the shaders I think some of the channels are extracted by the other code. It seem that there are nested sections that only use a certian color range or a certian alpha range. is it possible that these extra shader identifiers are just temporaries generated by the shader itself and not user definable channels?

starfleet · 16th May 04 10:51 AM

no, looking at each ship, each ship has diffrent shaders in the actual mesh..

ie the interceptor uses only part..

plus the haarsuk (yes it finally did get done) would only come out like this....

and glow etc right when i copied the hiigaran carrier shaders.

So it has to be a manual set

**Unicron** · 16th May 04 11:34 AM

What the hell....

LOL! Hiigaran carrier on steroids.

starfleet · 16th May 04 1:02 PM

ok worked out how to get it to do multipul lines of shaders

atm you have to use the script editor but i got it to work

say you wanted the same string of shader commands as the Hgn_carrier uses for the shader right? like what i said up there.. well in the script editor you put

Code:

setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Texture $shadow \n"
		+ "Texture $normals \n"
		+ "Texture $normalizationCube \n"
		+ "Texture $environmentCube \n"
		+ "Texture $passThough3d \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n"
		+ "Colour $keyLight \n"
		+ "Colour $fillLight \n"
		+ "Colour $ambient \n");

Then go to edit execute

Nothing happened? Wrong..

Go to the attribute editor and click Load Attributes.

Now look at the HW2 shader .. notice the diffrence?

-Rob

starfleet · 16th May 04 1:12 PM

ok now the strings

badges

Code:

setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $badge \n"
		+ "Texture $mask \n"
		+ "Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Texture $shadow \n"
		+ "Texture $normals \n"
		+ "Texture $normalizationCube \n"
		+ "Texture $environmentCube \n"
		+ "Texture $passThough3d \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n"
		+ "Colour $keyLight \n"
		+ "Colour $fillLight \n"
		+ "Colour $ambient \n");

That will do everything that the hiigaran interceptor, carrier have

for the corvette it was

Code:

setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $badge \n"
		+ "Texture $mask \n"
		+ "Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n");

Thruster.st - as by hiigaran carrier

Code:

	setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $diffuse0 \n"
		+ "Texture $glow0 \n"
		+ "Texture $diffuseOn \n"
		+ "Texture $glowOn \n"
		+ "Texture $diffuseOff \n"
		+ "Texture $glowOff \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n"
		+ "Colour $weight \n");

Ship.st by hiigaran carrier

Code:

	setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Texture $shadow \n"
		+ "Texture $normals \n"
		+ "Texture $normalizationCube \n"
		+ "Texture $environmentCube \n"
		+ "Texture $passThough3d \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n"
		+ "Colour $keyLight \n"
		+ "Colour $fillLight \n"
		+ "Colour $ambient \n");

by the corvette

Code:

	setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n");

by the interceptor

Code:

	setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Texture $shadow \n"
		+ "Texture $normals \n"
		+ "Texture $normalizationCube \n"
		+ "Texture $environmentCube \n"
		+ "Texture $passThough3d \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n"
		+ "Colour $keyLight \n"
		+ "Colour $fillLight \n"
		+ "Colour $ambient \n");

i'll look at subsystems in a minute

....

innateSS.st
- None

C_module_build_speed
-ship.st

Code:

setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" (
		"Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n");

cloaking module
ship.st

Code:

"Texture $diffuse \n"
		+ "Texture $glow \n"
		+ "Texture $shadow \n"
		+ "Texture $normals \n"
		+ "Texture $normalizationCube \n"
		+ "Texture $environmentCube \n"
		+ "Texture $passThough3d \n"
		+ "Colour $teambase \n"
		+ "Colour $teamstripe \n"
		+ "Colour $keyLight \n"
		+ "Colour $fillLight \n"
		+ "Colour $ambient \n");

firecontrol - see build speed
hyperspace - see cloaking module
inhibetor - see cloaking module

Corvette Production
ship.st

Code:

setAttr ".hw2ParamList" -type "string" "Texture $diffuse\n \n";
- can also be gotten by hitting enter on the extra attributes, then load attributes

fighter - see cloaking module
frigate - see corvette
research advanced - see cloaking module
etc.

sorry for repeats but lot to show there :P

starfleet · 28th May 04 5:43 PM

bump could a mod move this to archive dump plz

starfleet · 5th Dec 05 6:11 PM

Just a small update this and http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=28285 this will help go in hand along with

http://www.star-fleet.org/tutorials/texture.rar - video Texturing Tutorial.

http://www.star-fleet.org/tutorials/maya.rar - video ship set up etc. goes with the text tutorial found in the forums.relicnews.com link above.

Just so they are known

**Jaen-ni-rin** · 6th Dec 05 12:35 PM

OMG!!!
Starfleet !
The maker of tutorial I used to learn the damn maya !

starfleet · 8th Mar 06 9:32 PM

lol glad it helped some one

late i know to post by about 4 months buy hey.

starfleet · 28th Apr 06 10:28 PM

http://homeworld.star-fleet.org/#tutorials

Update on a centeral place to find the links etc for my tutorials and data.

Maya Plugs and getting shaders to work right.

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