topic X-particles multishader in Arnold for Cinema 4D Forum

X-particles multishader

mikkelsandner — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 23:40:37 GMT

Hi,

I am new to X-Particles so hope anyone can give me a helping hand using Arnold to render it.

I have set up my x-particles animation which is a bunch of planes(xpGenerator) on a floor that gradually covers a character.
Would anyone know how I can use Arnold render in Cinema 4D to render this?

What I am after is to add different images to my plane objects in the xpGenerator. But I can't see any texture on my xpGenerator object when using Arnold render.

Any suggestions how to do this?

Thanks,

Mikkel

Re: X-particles multishader

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 20:42:07 GMT

Do you need a random texture per plane or something more specific?

Re: X-particles multishader

mikkelsandner — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 20:48:38 GMT

Yes a random texture per plane would be great. I know how to create a multishader when using a cloner, but I have no clue how to do it when rendering x-particles.

Re: X-particles multishader

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:12:41 GMT

If you need random textures the workflow is not much different than with a Cloner. You can use a utility shader with the object id to drive a switch shader which selects from a range of textures. Check out this scene, just connect your textures to the switch shader inputs.

xpgenerator.zip

Re: X-particles multishader

mikkelsandner — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 10:38:04 GMT

Hi Peter,

Thanks that seem to work. However, its not using the all the inputs in the switch node.

When I do this using a cloner I usually follow this method:
https://inlifethrill.com/c4dtoa-1-recreating-mograph-multi-shader/
Only difference is that I add a color correct node after the utility with gamma 2.2.
That way most of inputs are shown.

Would you know how to display all the inputs when using x-particles?

Thanks,
Mikkel

Re: X-particles multishader

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:05:25 GMT

Made some changes here, hopefully this will now work as you expect: xpgenerator_v02.zip

You don't need a gamma. Basically what's happening is, that the utility produces a random color per object, I added a random shader to make the distribution better and make the output grayscale, then this is scaled up to the number of inputs via the range shader (5 in this eample). I also added an float_to_int shader to do rounding instead of floor and this drives the switch shader to select an input.

Re: X-particles multishader

mikkelsandner — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 19:06:30 GMT

Thanks, Peter!
This works great.