anyone interested in something of the weird variety?

Marbles Test 02 AVI

this could be useful for creating stuff for a crazy scientist's lab ..
or for creating a ghost-like character

- it actually is a volumetric texture, which you can see in the avi.
- it renders pretty slow, because there are many calculations necessary for each rendered pixel, since not only the surface of the model is evaluated.
- it cant self shadow and never will (impossible to code)
- it gets noisy at places

still, its fun to play with. especially on more complex objects.

That looks quite useful. Could the black be rendered in the alpha channel?

Cheers

i was planning to replace the black color by transparency=!00%, yes.

Marcel,

Boy that is wierd, in a good way of course.............how would it be applied (if that makes any sense?)

Michael

its just a normal material. you might have to play a bit with the "step size" value to get good and fast rendering results, as well as the "transparency" value, but other than that its just a normal mat. having said this, you should avoid any intersection of objects having this material with any other objects. this will prevent the material from rendering properly at these places.

i've just updated the plug-in: made it faster AND better.
see this Movie Clip!

and here is the plugin.
* the material preview window will look quite messed up,
* also it wont look right in a non-perspective view.
=> ideally use it for chor in-camera views

here is a quick guide (this is actually the best way to do it with most mats, but especially with Marbles):

- create a new material
- close mat preview window
- set default attribute to 100% transparent
- add attribute
- change the new attributes type to kci:dnd>marbles
- apply the material to your object
- open chor window
- use progressive render lock on the window
- tweak the mat and get live updates in chor

[removed attachment Marbles.atx]

Wow... marcel I want to thank you... today I loaded many of your plugins and MAN they are like a presents from the gods...

The tree-plugin is so genuise and this one is although a nice new strike of yours...

*Fuchur*

Marcel,

when will it be available or am I missing the link?
Sometime things dont show up in my Firefox browser...

Thanks,

Mike

Never mind I opened the forum in I.E. and your post showed where the plugin link...It doesnt show that post in Firefox..I dont get it...scratchin my head..


Michael

Gerald - i'm glad its worth the effort

Kamikaze - i've just posted the plugin as a forum attachment.
here is the link again.

Great plugin! Not too sure what I'd use it for but.. ME LIKE.

here is the latest test render.
i'm not quite sure where those artifacts come from..

but the plugin looks neat for plastic

test marbles 05

Great, Marcel !!!
Looks similarly to SSS
Is it effect SSS ?

only about 2 3rds

it is a "sub surface" texture, but it doesnt scatter light.

....But is similar .....
Whether there is an opportunity of creation of a real material SSS?

there are several approaches to sumulate sss.
i think it would be possible to implement it in a:m, but i dont think it is possible with a texture plugin.
i would like to see it implemented as an additional feature to translucency.

Thank Marcel
Whether it is possible to make Texture plugin, which would make blur effect + different methods (Additive color, Overlay e.t.c)?
(blur of transparency)
It could allow to make good animated fakes of SSS

this is not possible for a texture plugin, but soon there will be the possibility of POST-plugins. i think what you want will be possible with those.

The link to the plug-in returns an error... any way to get this thing. I 'must' collect all of ZPiDER's plug-ins -- it's an AM requirement -- a basic component of 'life' itself!! (hey, no wise cracks!)

Rusty

Are you trying to say that you have not aquired all of life's little 'plug-ins'?

Sorry Rusty... couldn't resist...

hey there!

i have taken up work on this plugin and compiled a version for v12.
and what can i say .. it now works surprisingly well!

the changes hash made to the renderer are bringing a whole new quality to marbles.

here is the old sample render for comparison:
http://www.kci-group.com/z/shared/marbles/...-marbles-05.avi

and here is the all new v12.0 render:
http://www.kci-group.com/z/shared/marbles/...rbles-05_12.avi

all those obvious errors disappeared, there are still some minor glitches, but they are hardly even noticeable and will likely even go away once you are using a higher render quality!

(i've only used 1-pass 320x768 rendering for speed. it took 6 seconds for rendering each frame.)

here is one frame from the animation above rendered with higher quality.

and here is another test movie showing off the effect below a checkered surface

http://www.kci-group.com/z/shared/marbles/...rbles-06_12.avi

This looks very good ,but the link's above to dl it are not working Marcel

thanks for the heads-up steve, i have now removed the broken link (.atx uploads dont seem to be allowed anymore).

attached you'll find a new version of the plug-in plus the scene for the test render shown above.

some things that will be fixed in the future:

- the plugin only renders correctly in perspective views
- the controls are pretty touchy right now, they might need some playing around
- building more complex materials you might not get the result you are expecting .. unsure about this, only happened to me once. when this happens, just save your file and re-load it, that fixed it for me.

try it and post your tests and comments here!

Thank's a lot Marcel ,looking forward to playing with it

Here is the new plugin version.
- i have changed the way the base color (formerly "tint") works
- i have made the input parameters more usable and understandable