How to add color sets to a mesh being created within a node

[eruditebaboon]

I've written a node that generates a mesh, and I'd like to be able to add some color sets to it, but I haven't been able to get this to work. Reading the documentation it seems that the MFnMesh object has to refer to a shape to be able to use the createColorSet command, but I'm not quite sure what this means. In my node I have an attribute of type MFnData:kMesh which I put my newly created mesh into, and then I connect this attribute into the input of a mesh node in my scene. Is there a way to add several color sets into the mesh inside my node, or am I going to have to completely change the way that my node works? I couldn't find any examples of createColorSet being used apart from snippets of incomplete code in forums, so any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[eikensson]

Dont know if this is fully related but when i use setFaceColor from MFnMesh colorsets are created automaticly.

[eruditebaboon]

Thanks for the reply. I have tried adding a color set with setFaceColor in the past, but the problem is that this only creates one color set - unfortunately for what I'm doing I need to create more than one color set.

[joojaa]

but the problem is that this only creates one color set

call the entire succession 2 times?

[eruditebaboon]

No good - setFaceColor creates a colour set only if there are no colour sets on the current mesh. If a colour set already exists then it just uses the existing set, so it can only ever be used to create one set.

[joojaa]

MFnMesh::createColorSetWithName?

[eruditebaboon]

That's the function I want to use, but to use it the MFnMesh object has to refer to a shape, and I'm not sure how to do that - it doesn't work in the node that I've created, and I can't find any examples of it being used.

[eruditebaboon]

I've managed to find a solution - there is a super secret function createColorSetDataMesh in the MFnMesh class which allows the creation of colour sets when the object does not refer to a shape, but there's no documentation for it anywhere... mysterious!

[joojaa]

Oh yes see originally maya was not able to send poly colors over mesh data, and theres still is a dual master over color sets going on.