Still Working On Connecting A Phong To Initialshadergroup!

[ted-k]

I get this after the MayaFileTranslator::reader function has done its work, In the hypergraph i can see a link between phong1 and initialshadergroup but my model is green meaning theres something wrong with the shader, if i delete the link and remake it manually it works ok, (outCOlor to surfaceShader):

any ideas why this appears in the script output window?

// Warning: line 1: Cannot add the following items to the set since the set has restrictions on membership: phong1 //

anyone know what restricktions its talking about? and how come i can add it manually it doesnt complain?

thanks

[rob-bateman]

use MFnSet to add it to the shader group. I'm pretty certain phong1 should have it's own shader group as well? ie. phong1SG

[ted-k]

im currently adding my phong to the shader MFnSet, unless you meant something else that I dont know about? I'm still quite noob to this. I'll try making a new shadergroup and see what i get. thanks

MFnSet fnSG( shadingGroupObj );
MFnPhongShader phongFn;
MObject objphong = phongFn.create();
status = fnSG.addMember( objphong );

[rob-bateman]

connectAttr -f phong1.outColor phong1SG.surfaceShader;
sets -e -forceElement -add phong1SG mesh1Shape;

[12monkey]

and also remember add it to the defaultShaderList if you generate this phong1 using mel command createNode phong.
//connectAttr -na phong1.msg defaultShaderList.s;
or it wont show up in materials section in Hypershade or Multilister.

[ted-k]

thanks for the replies in the end i created another shader group using a mel command

MDGModifier dgModifier3;	
dgModifier3.commandToExecute("sets -renderable true -noSurfaceShader true -empty -name myphongSG");
dgModifier3.doIt();

MObject shadingGroupObj;    	
MSelectionList selList;     
MGlobal::getSelectionListByName( "myphongSG", selList );    
MStatus status = selList.getDependNode( 0, shadingGroupObj );

then the connect between material and shader group worked with out any problem! Batman I think youre right saying the initialShaderGroup cant be used, theres some restriction on the membership

right on to animation next

[dbiggs]

The initialShadingGroup is evil and should never be touched. I walk around beating my artists with a large stick if they use it on anything being exported to game.

[rob-bateman]

QUOTE(dbiggs @ 06/03/07, 03:52 AM) [snapback]267370[/snapback]
The initialShadingGroup is evil and should never be touched. I walk around beating my artists with a large stick if they use it on anything being exported to game.

Care to qualify that statement a bit more as to why?

[ted-k]

because artist are lazy and need hitting with a stick at every oppertunity

seriously tho maya is great for artists but alias bods really need to help/listen to coders or be beaten with large sticks.

[rob-bateman]

QUOTE(ted_k @ 06/05/07, 03:02 PM) [snapback]267554[/snapback]
because artist are lazy and need hitting with a stick at every oppertunity

As a former artist myself, I strongly disagree with that statement, enough to say bollocks infact. It is attitudes like this that I encoutered from tools programmers that made me become a tools programmer myself. I was fed up of being told it could not be done, when in fact it was pretty obvious that it could. Attitudes like that are always the result of lazy programmers imo.

There is nothing that an artist can do in Maya that can break my current tool chain. Telling an artist to 'do something that way and that way only' is in my opinion a big failure on my part.

QUOTE(ted_k @ 06/05/07, 03:02 PM) [snapback]267554[/snapback]
seriously tho maya is great for artists but alias bods really need to help/listen to coders or be beaten with large sticks.

No. You need to start listening to your artists a hell of a lot more. Find out the way they work, and write your tools to fit their processes, not the other way around. The more that you do this, the more productive your artists will become. Every day for the last 7 years or so i haved worked on plug-ins for Max, Xsi, Maya, Motionbuilder and Houdini. Trust me, Maya is by far the easiest to use from a programers point of view. As a programmer it does mean you have to learn a lot about it from the point of view of an artist, but i'm afraid i'm going to say : tough, you are a tools programmer supporting artists. Get over it, or get a new job.

With regard to dbiggs post previously. It sounds to me like he has a fundamental flaw in his own code and is unfairly blaming artists for it. Alternatively, he may have come across a problem with Maya that I have never encountered (i've never encountered any problems with the initialShadingGroup in my 9 years of using Maya). Either way, it would be nice to clarify statements such as "The initialShadingGroup is evil and should never be touched" with a statement such as "because it causes X to happen to Y when doing Z. Either his problem can be rectified, or we all get to learn something new.

[joojaa]

batemans right however to add a bit:

many times people ask for tools which while doable don't actually make the users better or happier. Many times its the sort of thing where you are asked to do a tool for something nobody should be doing in first place. Theres many tools out there and in here that are workarounds for misunderstandings and workarounds. In these instances its a tool builders job to go and educate those people, because building a tool to indirectly fix a problem, isf that tool is a plausible instruction on web page, a printout or post it note on each artists monitor. So be it.

However you need to be in a dialog with the artists when you do this, you cant just go and say hey this is what i decided to do. You need to do it smart and try to reach some kind of discussion. After all its in your and thir best interest to learn new stuff.

Anyway im not actually thinking batmans 100% correct. Not everybody is very good at saying what their real needs are. So while it would be logical that each artist is capable of deciding what s a good tool idea and whats not because they do it all day long. However theres a reason why all of them didn't go batemans way, some are just not actually capable of thinking thisway or cant care less. Some can, however, so you must be able to spot these individuals, however please do try to keep the rapport mutual even with those that you dont seem likely to do so. They can all surprise you one day, besides all things to be fair you should also think of what the artists think you do all day.

So asking what people need now is one thing but what they need tomorrow is the ballgame. And my favorite example of inability to do so is this:

In the begging of the mobile phone era, finnish telecom industries did a survey that spanned the entire Scandinavia+ Finland (yes we had mobile phone networks thet worked like modern ones much earlier than rest of the world) and asked what one could do with text messages, 90% of people said news and stock reprots and all manner of sensible stuff. While in reality its the other way around 90% is fun and games and maybe less than 10% is sensible stuff (but this includes paying the soda in the machine with your phone wich is siensible only if you are cocacola or pepsi).

there are several reasons for things but i believe the answer comes form making people better in the knowhow than making tools that fix their errors.