Writing mtoa translator with many ginstance nodes

[froszu]

Getting my feet wet with arnold translators.

For start I try to create exporter that would create many instances of another node (sphere for now).

I'm not sure how/where should I create and setup "ginstance" nodes. I have something working but it doesn't update correctly, and I don't know if what I do is optimal.

Can anybody point me to similar example or take a look at my minimal code ?

Here's code

https://pastebin.com/BgGTuh1x

Screengrab showing Update problems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s88Jk6t8QsI&feature=youtu.be

thanks for any tips

[ashley.handscomb.retallack]

It looks like the docs for creating extensions needs updating. A lot of this has changed for MtoA 2.x.x, I will see what I can mock up for you and add it to here.

[ashley.handscomb.retallack]

Here's an example of your translator with some fixes, you need to give the instances a name so they can be cleared on refresh. There is also no need for an Update function now as it's all taken care of by the export and update method.

I'll look in to updating the tutorials on the MtoA docs as well.

sphereinstancertranslator.zip

[froszu]

Thanks @Ashley Handscomb Retallack !

All is working OK now and I can go on with next challenges.

Can you point me to any arnold-dev related resources? Wiki, example plugins, any opensource projects, etc. ?

Is there an official arnold-dev forum where I could ask api specific questions ?

thanks

-michal

[ashley.handscomb.retallack]

This is the only official Arnold development forum really. And the docs for writing extensions for MtoA have now been updated: https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/x/ow1kAg