ShaderFX render targets (using custom camera)

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have been working on a a tool that allows you to build heightmaps/textures through using render targets.

The idea behind it is to use a topdown camera to capture the depth and color buffer and feed it to a shader (tessellated shader) that does the compositing of those render targets.

I have managed to make it work in Unreal Engine and in Houdini through a different method.

Houdini engine prototype:

The downside of this method is that Houdini needs to output geometry back to Maya every time you do a change.

It tends to get slow if the output geometry has a high polygon count.

Unreal Engine shader method :

The method I would like to get working in Maya. Uses a camera which renders to texture the Depth and color buffers and feeds them back to a tessellation shader.

The final output is saved to disk.

Now I'm trying to redo this method in Maya through ShaderFX and I happen to stumble on a blog post on Shaderfx's website which shows how to make use of render target in Maya :

http://www.shaderfx.com/2014/11/setting-up-render-target-can-be-tricky.html#comment-form

 I have been trying to figure out if it is possible to use a different camera (other than the perspective camera)to capture the depth and color buffer in ShaderFX without much success.

The idea is to simply tell the shader to use a custom camera and render to texture what it sees in real time.

I would really appreciate If anyone can share an idea or a direction on how to accomplish this.

Thanks,

Amir