Hi @Topeich
Hmm ok.
This thread has a lot of posts on some Xgen jittering which may be a bit similar to your issue.
I'd recommend looking at the whole thread but here's the solution text from that thread:
A few more questions.
- Would using the rand() function, in the primitive length or width, cause it to re-generate a random seed each frame?
No, seeds are not random and they do not get regnerated per frame as they are the start state for random number generation. The rand() function uses a default seed but you can explicitly give it a seed rand(min, max, seed)
- Sometimes in the XGen window under Preview/Output > Output Settings > Renderer, the option to render in mental ray disappears (despite mental ray being loaded properly in the plug-in manager). Why does this occur and is there any way to get it to load?
This is a bug that keeps cropping up. Usually you have to quit Maya and restart, make sure that Mental ray is loaded and set as the renderer before loading Xgen.
- When I was troubleshooting and making changes to the hair collection, then batch rendering to test the changes, the batch render would occasionally not register the changes. Why would this be? Do I need to manually save before batch rendering?
The changes need to be saved to the XGen file for Batch rendering to be able to read them. The Batch Render does not have access to the live Maya session.
- If control a value with an expression (ex. primitive 'width'), then reset it to a slider, when I reload the scene, it always gives me an error, something like this:
- // Error: XGen: Error in expression "XGen_Man_hair4::width". [$a=0.1000;#-1.0,1.0]
Error: Unexpected end of expression':
$a=0.1000;#-1.0,1.0
This is becuase part of the expression is being cut off by the reset. $a is a declared variable but the variable is not being called because a secondf line was lost by resetting.
The full expression should be:
$a=0.1000;#-1.0,1.0
$a
- When you first open a scene and import an existing XGen collection (the XGen file) and it asks you whether you want to overwrite or make a new collection (usually with the number '1' as a suffix), if you choose to make a NEW collection, why does XGen still look to the old folder for paintmaps? Is there a way to force it to look in the new folder?
If you want to import a collection but not use the collections folders, you'd have an empty collection. You might want to export the descriptions to presets. the preset system saves the description data to a separate location and then this info is saved to a new collection when youi save the scene.
- I'm a little confused about how to use the noise expression you gave me. I see this generates noise for a given value (ex. primitive 'width'), but in my case, I'm using noise from a modifier (ex. clumping > noise). Would you still use this expression in this case? Where would I paste the expression? (under clumping > noise > magnitude?) Is the clumping noise static in relationship to the hairs by default?
You could use the expression in the Mask or magnitude ir any other parameter as it generates a float value (0-1) than be used to drive any of the clump parameters or other modifier parameters
Cheers
