Can GH 'material' component control reflectance (not just 'shinyness')?

Hi all,

I'm playing around with Giulio Piacentino's 'renderAnimation' (http://www.giuliopiacentino.com/grasshopper-tools) script for a Vray animation, and running into an issue with how materials are baked. The GH material component only controls the 'shinyness' value of the object, which doesn't seem to correspond to reflectance. The attached rendering shows prebaked GH spheres (blue) with a reflectance layer from Vray...compare those with the red/orange ones that come out of the renderAnimation script / straight from GH...no reflectance, but clearly some shiny action at the edges due to the default environment map.

Is there a workaround for getting baked geometry to automatically include reflectance control? Any custom material components out there? It seems like there should be a simple answer to this, but I can't find it... :)

Attachments:

GH Material Reflectance.jpg, 21 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Giulio Piacentino on January 23, 2011 at 3:33pm

Hi Benjamin,

here an addition to the previous script. With this, it should be possible to also input data for 'reflection' (a number) and 'reflectivity' (a color) for each of the objects. These values are currently available in rendering materials and not in display materials (based on OpenGL). In the script, if there are less reflectivity values than geometry objects, then the values are repeated in pattern.

By the way, if you need plug-in specific features, it should be possible to just use names of materials (strings) that are already in the document.

Please let me know how this is working. Thanks,

- Giulio

Attachments:

animation-four-examples-804.ghx, 643 KB

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Anderson on January 23, 2011 at 4:46pm

Giulio-here's my attempt to use your definition...reflectivity still doesn't seem to be affected-I'm still getting 'shiny' objects (they reflect the color of the background) but no reflections of surrounding objects...is there something I'm missing?

Attachments:

renderAnimation-vray test.ghx, 386 KB
renderAnimation-vray test.3dm, 1.3 MB

Permalink Reply by Giulio Piacentino on January 24, 2011 at 4:24am

Hi Benjamin,

there was a new line char in the end of the material name (and the panel was disabled), that's why it was not working. This example now works here. Please keep in mind, however, that it is not possible to set the reflectivity if you use an existing material name.

I hope it helps,

- Giulio

_______________

giulio@mnceel.com
McNeel Europe, Barcelona

Attachments:

renderAnimationvraytest-spelling.ghx, 394 KB

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Anderson on January 24, 2011 at 10:29pm

Thanks Giulio...I can get it working with the existing material string (which works for now) but still no luck getting the thing to reflect anything-you could conceivably do something like chrome from GH, right?

Much appreciated!

Permalink Reply by Giulio Piacentino on January 25, 2011 at 3:48am

Hi Benjamin,

if you put a Grasshopper material in the 'material' input, then you can use the 'reflection' (a number) and 'reflectivity' (a color). This will set the values in the Rhino material. I do not know if V-ray keeps track of these values, but I checked quickly with Rhino v5 default renderer and it works - so eventually Vray should, too.

On the other hand, if you assign 'material' with a string, you can tweak the material from the default renderer interface, and you should be able to get it to reflect as it's just the same material that is in the document.

I hope this helps,

- Giulio
_________________

giulio@mcneel.com
McNeel Europe, Barcelona

RSS