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There are improvements across the board. The actual documentation for the nodes has not yet been updated. Please use this web page to understand the new features and then refer back to the documentation for the older features.
Maya 4.0 ONLY
The Sampler Emitter does not work under Maya 4.5 as the initial release of Maya 4.5 has broken the API functionality for emitters. Once this functionality has been fixed by A|W, the emitter will once again function. For now, it does not load during plug-in initialization.Polygonal UV Support
The Sampler Emitter now uses the UV information of the surface
that it is emitting from to calculate shaders and outputs the UV information
to the particles parentU and parentV attributes when the NeedParentUV flag
is turned on.
This means that you can now use 2D textures such as ramps and file nodes
for mapping various attributes when emitting from a polygonal surface.
Depth Map Shadow Support
There is now a flag that either enables or disables the calculation
of Depth Map shadows when calculating shaders connected to the Sampler Emitter.
With the flag enabled, Depth Map shadows will be calculated for any
light in the scene that has Depth Map Shadows turned on.
Shadows will be cast onto the particles and baked into the channels that
you are outputting the data into. This differs from the Maya 4.5 support
of hardware rendered depth map shadows on GForce graphic cards in that it
supports all particle types including Sprites and the shadow information
is applied directly to the particle attribute assigned.
When calculating the Depth Map shadows, the Sampler Emitter will automatically
change the render type of the particles to Blobby Particles so that they
will be visible in the Depth Map. This allows the particles to self-shadow
themselves. However, you should keep in mind that the default radius
for a Blobby Particle is 1 and if your hardware rendered particles are not
1 unit in size, the resulting Depth Map will be quite off. If you
are using Sprites, I recommend setting either the Radius of the particles
to be the SpriteScaleX or SpriteScaleY attribute of the particles or if you
are using SpriteScaleXPP or SpriteScaleYPP also use RadiusPP and have RadiusPP
equal the greater of the two. If you are using Multi-Point or Multi-Streak
particles, set the Radius of the blobby particles to be the Multi-Radius.
Unlimited Attribute Mapping
Under the Shading Attributes tab in the Attribute Editor for
the Sampler Emitter, there is a button titled "Add Attribute Map". When
you click on the button, the Sampler Emitter adds two new attribute entries,
Map and To. To the Map attribute, you can connect any shading node.
In the To attribute field, you can enter the name of the attribute
on the particle object that you want to have populated with the resulting
values of the shading node.
If the attribute that you are mapping the data to does not exist on the
particle object, the shader evaluation is ignored. If the attribute
is a float array as opposed to a vector array, the resulting luminance is
used with the simple equation, (colorR + colorB + colorG) / 3 . This
equation differs from a true luminance equation.
Scale Rate By Size Works With Polygons
The Scale Rate By Size attribute now works correctly with polygons.
Need ParentUV Now Properly Assign ParentUV Information
In the previous version of Stroika, the ParentU and ParentV attributes
of the particle object were not populated with the UV information from the
NURBS surface where the particles were emitted. Instead, ParentU0
and ParentV0 were used. This has been corrected in V1.5 .
Unlimited Attribute Mapping
Under the Additional Attribute Mapping tab in the Attribute Editor for
the Shading Field, there is a button titled "Add Attribute Map". When
you click on the button, the Shading Field adds two new attribute entries,
Map and To. To the Map attribute, you can connect any shading node.
In the To attribute field, you can enter the name of the attribute
on the particle object that you want to have populated with the resulting
values of the shading node.
If the attribute that you are mapping the data to does not exist on
the particle object, the shader evaluation is ignored. If the attribute
is a float array as opposed to a vector array, the resulting luminance is
used with the simple equation, (colorR + colorB + colorG) / 3 . This
equation differs from a true luminance equation.
By using a single Shading Field to calculate multiple shaders, your simulations
will evaluate more quickly as all of the input data required to calculate
the shaders is only gathered once.
Depth Map Shadow Support
There is now a flag that either enables or disables the calculation
of Depth Map shadows when calculating shaders connected to the Shading Field.
With the flag enabled, Depth Map shadows will be calculated for any
light in the scene that has Depth Map Shadows turned on.
Shadows will be cast onto the particles and baked into the channels that
you are outputting the data into. This differs from the Maya 4.5 support
of hardware rendered depth map shadows on GForce graphic cards in that it
supports all particle types including Sprites and the shadow information
is applied directly to the particle attribute assigned.
Evaluates On Particle Creation
The Shading Field now evaluates correctly on during the creation
of the particles. In V1.0, the field would only evaluate after the
particle was more than 1 frame old. This means that you can now use
the Shading Field on particles that are emitted from sources other than
a Sampler Emitter and have the particles evaluated by the Shading Field
when they are first created.
Automatic Attribute Detection
If the attribute that you are mapping the data to does not exist
on the particle object, the shader evaluation is ignored. If the attribute
is a float array as opposed to a vector array, the resulting luminance is
used with the simple equation, (colorR + colorB + colorG) / 3 . This
equation differs from a true luminance equation.
Advanced Input Mapping
In V1.0 of Stroika, the Shading Field would read the values it needed
to calculate the attached shading node based on some basic rules :
if the user had created a "samplePosPP" attribute, the Shading Field would use its values as the position in space in which to sample the attached shader, if it did not exist, the "position" attribute would be used.You can now specify which attributes on your particle object that you want the Shading Field to use. Simply type in the name of the attribute that you want the Shading Field to use in the appropriate field in the Advanced Attribute Mapping tab of the Attribute Editor.
if the user had created a "uCoordPP" attribute, the Shading Field would use its values as the uValue for the shading node that was being sampled, failing that, it would look for "parentU".
In the Attribute Editor for the Curve Field, there is a new tab called
"Output Options".
Returns Normal and Normalized Normal
You can enter the name of the attribute on your particle object that you
want the resulting Normal of the point along the curve that the particle
is currently being affected by to be sent to. The Normal in this case
is simply the difference between the particle's position and the closest
point on the curve.
The Normalized Normal is the same data metioned above but normalized,
or basically, with a length of 1, simply indicating the direction with a
magnitude of 1. This data is better suited for use in Shading Field.
Returns UValue
Enter the name of the attribute on your particle object that
you want the U Value of the curve at the point that particle is currently
being affected by to be sent to. This is useful for driving ramps
to do things like change the color of the particles as they move along a
curve, or even changing their mass.
In the Attribute Editor for the NormalField, there is a new tab called
"Output Options".
Returns Normal and Normalized Normal
You can enter the name of the attribute on your particle object that you
want the resulting Normal of the point along the curve that the particle
is currently being affected by to be sent to. The Normal in this case
is simply the difference between the particle's position and the closest
point on the curve.
The Normalized Normal is the same data metioned above but normalized,
or basically, with a length of 1, simply indicating the direction with a
magnitude of 1. This data is better suited for use in Shading Field.
Returns UValue
Enter the name of the attribute on your particle object that you want the U Value of the curve at the point that particle is currently being affected by to be sent to. This is useful for driving ramps to do things like change the color of the particles as they move along a curve, or even changing their mass.