Arnold rendering visibility Track

[sdeters]

I have been messing with renders and ran into a small issue.

When I render my assembly with objects being hidden with the visibility track Mental Ray works great.

When I do the same thing with Arnold, Arnold renders all of the object regardless of the visibility track.

Is this an error or am I missing something.

I found out Redshift does not support this visibility track

Should I be hiding and showing objects with the visibility track or should I be doing it differently.

Thanks

[faline.custodio.da.silva]

@sdeters

Use the Arnold Properties Modifier for visibility control with Arnold in 3ds Max.

Cheers

[sdeters]

Why does it not support the visibility track?

I will look into this?  Can I animate this property.  I have a lot objects I need to turn on and move.  Maybe I am going about this the wrong way.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Anonymous]

Hi ,

I found myself with the same problem..

Did you manage to solve it?

Thanks

[sdeters]

No this is becoming more and more of an issue.  We are using the mental ray render because of this. 

When will this be fixed I do not know.  I spent a lot of time doing this visibility track.  So We will not be using Arnold anytime soon.

[fla3d]

For the moment we are animating the material's visibility.
Hope they add support for the visibility track in the future or enable the Arnold properties to be animated.

[sdeters]

Would be able to elaborate on how you are animating the materials visibility?

Thanks

Shane

[fla3d · Accepted solution]

Sorry for the late reply, if you are using the physical material ou can add some map to the cutout slot, it can be an Arnold Color Convert, and then you animate the input of this map changing from white to black to make an object invisible.

If you are using an Arnold Standard Surface as material it has already a Opacity (cutout) color, you just animate it going from white to black. You can either plug the same Arnold Color Convert into the opacity slot, this way is easier to control different materials at the same time.

[sdeters]

Thanks I will check both of these option out today.  I may have more questions if that is ok.  But will attempt this.

Thanks again.

[gmote]

Looked it up but no instructions for where / how to open it in 3ds MAx....   Arnold documentation for max is really, really poor.  Please help.

[gmote]

I'm stuck with Arnold because max 2018 dropped Mental Ray.  I teach a course at university so all tools are on classroom computers. 

[foutjm]

having issues animating visibility like this in Arnold. i have tried using the Arnold material with the cutout color, and adding the color convert map in the opacity slot. both work to a point. the problem arises when the transparency or visibility is completely on black. i get these scattered black spots all over where my objects would be. i tried changing out light types and messing with the arnold properties modifier (unchecking opaque) but nothing seems to fix this. any help? pictures attached.

[gmote]

Hi foutjm...   That's a little better than the "material" visibility solutions I've been trying but still unacceptable.  I'll keep working on the problem and will let you know if I come up with anything.  Hopefully the "pros" will actually "work" on this too and not just provide suggestions for things to try without actually trying them out for themselves. 

PS: 

I found the Arnold Properties Modifier!  It is an actual MODIFIER available in the modifier panel drop down list that you can add to any selected object in the scene BUT unlike the parameters of ANY OTHER MODIFIER that I can think of, the parameters of the Arnold modifier CAN NOT BE KEY FRAMED.   They do turn on/off visibility but without being able to key frame them... having the modifier is only helpful for static adjustment of the many Arnold parameters so of no value for animators who want to use key frames to turn things on/off.

[foutjm]

gmote. 

having to add that modifier to every single piece of geometry is pretty counter intuitive but it looks like that's how Arnold works. i think the important piece of that is to uncheck the Opaque flag from what i have read elsewhere. yes a visibility track in that would be a step up for sure. 

i have tried enabling legacy maps and tried standard maps and still get a lot of black spotting. hoping to dig into it further today or tomorrow. my deadline has come and gone for this project, would use scanline if i didn't have other objects that have to use Arnold or MR (and i don't have MR anymore of course).

do you get the same black spotting?

[foutjm]

Solved my problem. Depth limits. Crank Transparency Depth up.

[gmote]

I couldn't figure out exactly what you were talking about with Cutout maps, depth limit, etc.  Could you attach a screen shot of your material?  However, I played around and came up with this: 

I had to create a new physical material for the mParticle system parts but it seems to be working now.  I'll try to send the video after I get it uploaded somewhere.

[foutjm]

• Sorry away from home for the weekend. my material looks like yours except its a Arnold standard surface material. you can either animate the opacity map you assigned (color convert)or you can animate the opacity/cutout parameter in the Arnold material(as mentioned early on in this string). however if your transparency depth (under render setup for Arnold) is set low you will get blotchy areas where surfaces overlap. crank it up and all is well. haven't tried it with particle systems.

[gmote]

Thanks so much.  With your last explanation I think I was able to duplicate what you did... much easier since I only need to animate the Opacity (cutout) as you said.  This will be a LOT easier for my students to understand, too.  Here's a screen shot of the latest material used:

[fla3d]

If anyone still needs this, since the latest MaxtoA v.2.3.33 all of the Arnold Properties can now be animated, including visibility.

[sdeters]

I like the opacity work around it was nice.

Does it animate with the visibility track, or does it animate  the Arnold properties of visibility?