topic Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red in Arnold for Cinema 4D Forum

Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 15:58:46 GMT

Hello, I have one scene and work on it with 2 computers. I use relative paths for textures and ass files. Althoug geometry is loaded textures on some procedurals fail to load and turn up red. Some procedurals render ok, like the bed in the back and bush on the left. I have designated search paths. Still textures wont load.
I would like to ask for advice.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 17:23:25 GMT

Seems like your textures are specified with absolute paths, probably in the procedural ASS files. The Texture Search Path works only for relative paths. Make sure all textures specified relative when you export the procedurals (you can check in the Asset/Tx Mananger).

If your setup seems fine and you still have the error, it could be a bug somewhere.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 17:28:06 GMT

Actually I could reproduce it. Seems like a bug with auto tx. If you disable auto tx or specify TX textures directly, then relative paths exported fine. I'll fix this ASAP.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 17:50:23 GMT

Hello Peter,
I am relative path man, you won´t find single abosolute path in my assets or textures. It seem that when I export .ass file, .tx paths are exported along as absolute links.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:01:34 GMT

Yes, it's a bug, see my comment below.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:15:58 GMT

not sure how exactly to reproduce your work-around, I still get red textures, or should I just wait for some sort of quick hot fix?

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:36:09 GMT

If you disable auto tx and re-export the procedural ASS files, that should work. Alternatively you can replace the absolute paths manually in the ASS files.

Or wait for the next release (coming soon) which will the fix the export. That means you have to re-export the procedural ASS files with the new build.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:50:05 GMT

First option did not work for me. How/where can I change the .tx paths of .ass manually?

It would be good if during export .tx paths would copy behavior of original textures. Absolute stay absolute, relative stay relative.

thank you
daniel

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 19:04:50 GMT

You can open ASS files in a text editor.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 15:34:19 GMT

C4DtoA 3.0.2 has been released which has the fix to keep relative paths when auto tx is on. You have to re-export your procedural ASS files using this build. Please let me know if you still have issues.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:30:35 GMT

Hello Peter,
after taking steps you mentioned, it still renders red. It is like it cannot find .tx files. But there are there, just like search paths.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:45:34 GMT

Do you have 'Search In Subfolders' enabled? What if you define the full folder path in the search path: /Users/MIKOLAJCAK/assets/Decoration/Organic/Textures/Pine Cones

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:58:33 GMT

I had "search subfolder on" all along. Arnold finally finds .tx when I specify exact search path: /Users/MIKOLAJCAK/assets/Decoration/Organic/Textures
is this another bug perhaps? Textures in the scene and .ass geometry are loaded fine without exact path specification.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 18:01:07 GMT

Right, it's a current limitation, the subfolder option does not work for textures in procedurals. You have to specify the full path. I'll take a look if this can be solved.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 18:05:48 GMT

Although as workaround it is ok, It would be very good if it need not to be specified for each ass object.
thanks

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 08:18:28 GMT

Hello Peter,
any success in the matter of subfolder search for ASS textures? ASS are in my opinion best way to reference external assets.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 08:31:36 GMT

Sorry, it's not fixed yet. Since procedurals are black boxes, the difficulty here is to find the right solution which does not affect performance. Will let you know if I have a fix.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 09:04:33 GMT

No Problem, take your time

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 15:51:10 GMT

Hello Peter,
since you mentioned viewport performance of ASS objects it reminded me that once ASS are set to display as wireframe, polywire, shaded polywire or shaded, FPS drops drastically to 4 fps.
when set to pointcloud fps goes to 20 and when it is set to bounding box, fps is 200.

However when I import original 3d plant (688000 triangles) mesh and display it as shaded mesh, fps stays at 200 and is barely affected. It is not ASS specific and happens with every referenced mesh.

I guess this has something to do with the subfolder path mapping as well.

Anyway viewport performance is already now very bad.

Re: Ass Procedurals rendered red

peter.horvath6V6K3 — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 15:40:18 GMT

Sorry I missed that. I'm not aware of this issue, must be something with the viewport display code. Will take a look.