Noise Map vs Arnold

[quinnredshift]

For some reason, I cannot get Noise maps to work with Arnold; everything with a Noise map renders white (for that particular Mat ID).

These are the standard, basic, general Noise maps, mind you.

I tried using the Arnold-specific Noise maps but I simply cannot reproduce what I'm trying to do with the legacy Noise map because there are way too many settings and some settings that seem to be completely missing, and it's all a big mess.

Why aren't Noise maps working, and how can I make them work?

[CiroCardoso3v]

Any chance you can share a simple scene with your setup? I tend to use the OSL Noise maps.

[quinnredshift]

Here ya go.

[CiroCardoso3v]

You are working with GPU and the legacy nodes from 3ds Max, like noises and some other nodes, aren't supported. To know what you can work with, switch the Compatibility Mode to Arnold

[quinnredshift]

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@CiroCardoso3v wrote:

You are working with GPU and the legacy nodes from 3ds Max, like noises and some other nodes, aren't supported. To know what you can work with, switch the Compatibility Mode to Arnold

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Yeah, that was the first thing I did.

The problem is that only the legacy maps give me the control I need over the result. The easy and intuitive control over the results.

I've been wrestling with Arnold-compliant maps for days and I just can't get what I need out of the Arnold maps. They're too complicated and lack features I used all the time in older versions of MAX.

But I can't not use GPU rendering; the same frame that took 12 minutes on CPU is 2 with GPU rendering.

So I'm caught between two dealbreakers. What do I do?

[quinnredshift]

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@quinnredshift wrote:

Here ya go.

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Rendering that scene still looks like this on my machine 

And you switched it to MAX rendering which I can't use because it jacks up the rendering time three-fold.

[CiroCardoso3v]

I will have a look at this later today.

[quinnredshift]

Thanks. 🙂

[wernienst]

May I jump in? Here is my attempt:

First I added a plane and some lighting (I don't like working in the dark :-)). I've tried to make the materials appearing similarly. I have to admit that I needed several hours to get there. There are some inconsistences in Arnold's maps. E.g. to increase the size of the noise I had to use higher scale values with Noise and lower values with Cell Noise.

[quinnredshift]

On the one hand, this kinda works, but on the other hand, not so much.

I can probably use this to make those tanks look right in a render, but...can't see it in the viewport, so it's still going to be a lot of trial and error.

Also, I'm wondering about the necessity of using a Ramp instead of just Cellular Noise; why did you do that? Am I missing something?

Also-also, Arnold compatible ramps seem to lack just so very much control that was given to me by the legacy Gradient Ramp. Why is the interface with Arnold maps so darned less user-friendly and intuitive?

[wernienst]

As I suggested elsewhere: switch perspective viewport to ActiveShade.

The Cell Noise shader outputs grayscale data only, so I used the Ramp Rgb to convert it to colors.

However, to your last question, I have no answer 😞

[quinnredshift]

Huh. I don't know what the deal is, but that was giving me error messages out the wazoo earlier.

Gave it another go and it seems to be working. Cool, thanks! 🙂

[wernienst]

TDs probably like this.

[CiroCardoso3v]

Thanks for doing this.

I think some of the Arnold nodes look so unfriendly due to the fact that Arnold isn't exclusive to 3ds Max and they do try to keep consistency between the different software like Maya, Houdini, Katana, etc.

[CiroCardoso3v]

What are you trying to accomplish with the Ramp node? I have an OSL node that does a top to down mask if that helps.

[quinnredshift]

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@CiroCardoso3v wrote:

What are you trying to accomplish with the Ramp node? I have an OSL node that does a top to down mask if that helps.

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I'm trying to do everything a legacy Gradient Ramp can do.

I use every last one of the functions in a legacy Gradient Ramp on so very many, many things.

It's not just this one instance; there are so many functions which have just been ripped out of everything I used in older versions of MAX. In particular, the Gradient Type setting seems completely missing, and that's a vital, vital part of what I do.

In particular, Box, Lighting, Normal, Linear, and Radial. I use those all the time. And I mean all the time.

If there is a way to do those with Arnold ramps, I can't find it.

[quinnredshift]

And here is another missing feature...where did the "Tiling" functions go?

Where is the "Coordinates" panel at all?

I can't use Tiling controls with any kind of mapping modifier on the object; it's too warped for that now. Originally, I had put the map on the base object and then manipulated that because I never foresaw this problem; it was only after I started using Arnold-only (to do GPU rendering) that I started running into all of these weird roadblocks. (And all of them involve what I thought was basic functionality no longer being present for use.)

Everything was working fine with legacy Gradient Ramps, but now it seems like these features have been yanked from Arnold-compatible materials entirely. Is there some equivalent I don't know about, like you need two maps to make it work, with the Ramp Rgb attached to a Coordinates map or something?

How do I get the same functionality using only Arnold materials and maps?

[wernienst]

With Ramp Rgb, there are at least these types:

Color interpolation can be Constant (=Solid), Linear, Catmull-Rom (≈EaseIn-Out) and Monotone Cubic (whatever that is).

In this example I used box type. Tiling is done by UVW Maps exclusively.

There might be other ways too. I am still learning, too...

[quinnredshift]

Okay, those parameters panels...what are those from? A UVW map, the texture itself...?

Cuz I can't seem to get those within the Material Editor like previous versions of MAX.

[CiroCardoso3v]

weirnienst is already showing some cool stuff, but it is very difficult to help you with something so generic as: I want to do everything. By providing an example, of what you want to accomplish, we can show you a solution and this will help you understand how the nodes work and start finding solutions on your own. OSL is extremely powerful and the secret lies in connecting nodes together to achieve complex shading.

If you give one example of what you are trying to do, then we can start showing you how to use these nodes.