I'd like to add support for animated previews in my custom node space. I assumed, that enabling Animate Preview on the Viewport tab of the material means that the GetMaterialParameters() function of my viewport material is called every time the frame changes in the scene.

However that does not seem to be the case, nothing happens when moving the timeline. Am I missing something? Do you have an example of how to support animated previews?

Hey Ferdinand,

Nothing special about the context. Tried cloning with AliasTrans, but it does not help.

I'm attaching a simple code taken from the manual in case you want to reproduce the issue. The code adds two commands, one calling RenderDocument() with the RENDERFLAGS::NODOCUMENTCLONE flag and one without. You can see, that the one with the flag does not render the particles. Note, that no manual cloning is involved in the example, just loading the document, which might indicate that it's indeed a bug.

test_renderdocument.zip

Thanks,
Peter

This might be a very unique use-case.
We define a custom node system that is used in Node Materials. We have a shader that references another nodes from the scene, such as materials and objects. Currently when the Node Materials is copied over to a new scene, these references are lost. Ideally, the referenced nodes should be cloned and copied over to the new scene along with the material. Is it possible to do this with the current SDK?
This was not an issue with our legacy material, since it was our custom MaterialData implementation, and so we had control over copying by overriding the CopyTo() method.

Thanks for looking into it @m_adam.

Maybe this is specific to Arnold, but there are shader parameters that are not linkable. It's a flag on the parameter. Typically, boolean and enum type parameters are not linkable, like the ones highlighted in the screenshot below. But could be any parameters really, depending on the shader code.

Hi Ferdinand,

Thank you for your reply. Sorry for not being completely clear. Yes, I meant maxon::nodes::ReqOrderIndex. I feel like it would be more natural if the input menu would match the order in the Attribute Editor, instead of listing the items in alphabetical order. Being able to control the behavior via the API could be welcome. I'll make a feature request, just in case. What's the best option to file an API request? Should I use the form in support.maxon.net or the contact form here?

Thanks,
Peter

Hi Ferdinand,

Thank you for the detailed description, it's very useful, I have a good understanding now how this should work. Yes, the main goal here is installer optimization. Unfortunately, hosting online is not an option. I'll give it a thorough testing to see if we hit any limitations with this approach, and we might drop the idea if so.

Thanks,
Peter

We set the order index of the ports and they are displayed properly in the Attribute Editor, but the input port menu does not respect this and groups and ports are displayed in a "random" order, that does not match the UI and is quite confusing.

Is this a limitation or is there a flag or other attribute we have to set to match the layout of the Attribute Editor?

Is there a flag to hide a port from the input port menu in the Node Editor. We'd like to have the parameters displayed in the Attribute Manager, but there are some that are not linkable, thus it does not make sense to have them in the input port menu.

Our plugin ships with a few material assets. I'm wondering if it's possible to install our custom asset library (asset database) as a zip file, instead of hundreds of files and folders.

Sure, no worries, it's not a high priority, more like a nice to have feature. We can manage without this. I was just wondering if something like this could be possible already in the context of node materials. Thanks.

Hi Ferdinand,

Yes, I'm referring to a reference as a BaseLink or port with a linkbox custom gui. Our legacy material using the classic API does exactly what you have described. It clones the linked node in NodeData::CopyTo(), packs it with the material and unpacks in the new scene via a scene hook/message data plugin. Not pretty, but works fine.
This level of flexibility is missing from Node Materials, so as I understand it's not possible to achieve something similar right now nor in the near future most likely. Alright, I can live with that.

Cheers,
Peter

This might be a very unique use-case.
We define a custom node system that is used in Node Materials. We have a shader that references another nodes from the scene, such as materials and objects. Currently when the Node Materials is copied over to a new scene, these references are lost. Ideally, the referenced nodes should be cloned and copied over to the new scene along with the material. Is it possible to do this with the current SDK?
This was not an issue with our legacy material, since it was our custom MaterialData implementation, and so we had control over copying by overriding the CopyTo() method.

Thanks Ferdinand, that makes sense. Will do the preroll step in my code. Cheers.