misss_fast / lightmaps broken?

[valentine]

Hi,

I lately got some weird errors when using a lightmap in conjunction with misss_fast. The lightmap did its job for a while, but suddenly it stopped being updated/rendered. When i fire up a render MR tells me:

// ERROR : PHEN 0.7 error: misss_lightmap_write: Lightmap 16777275 is not writable, aborting lightmapping.
// ERROR : PHEN 0.13 error: misss_fast_shader_init: Lightmap is not 32 bit 4 component

I already created a new lightmap via RTree/UserTools/CreateSSSLightmap but with no luck. Even when I delete the Lightmap from my harddrive altogether it doesn't get newly written or updated. I also migrated the shader and the model into a fresh scene, again without luck...

Any idea whats going wrong here? That whole SSS thing in XSI is just a bloody mess ;(

I'm working with XSI 7.01 on Windows Seven x64.

Best regards
valentine

[valentine]

Well, it seems that XSI isn't somehow capable of feeding lightmap data into a lightmap_write node through a compound port. at least not all the time. When I copy the lightmap into my sss compound it works again, the lightmap is updated and the image is rendered properly.

The weird thing is: it worked once before and then suddenly stopped working. I even completely deleted the compounds lightmap port and created a new one from scratch - still it doesn't work as supposed. Could it be that during the forwarding of the lightmap data to the compound some weird conversion problems arise? Like, that the alpha channel is discarded or something the like?

Any help resolving those issues would be really appreciated!

Regards
valentine ;)

[Hirazi Blue]

Okay, I reinstalled my good old XSI 7.01 to check this out, but wasn't able to reproduce your problems "right out of the box". This obviously doesn't mean, there is nothing wrong, but I could easily render out multiple frame with both misss & both compounds (with extra lightmaps added). So now I'm thinking: something wrong with your installation? Corrupted XSI folder/workgroup (XSI unable to write there)?

Now that I've reinstalled 7.01 I am willing to test some things, to find out what's wrong...
;)

P.S. Troubleshooting 101 often helps

[valentine]

Okay, I reinstalled my good old XSI 7.01 to check this out, but wasn't able to reproduce your problems "right out of the box". This obviously doesn't mean, there is nothing wrong, but I could easily render out multiple frame with both misss & both compounds (with extra lightmaps added). So now I'm thinking: something wrong with your installation? Corrupted XSI folder/workgroup (XSI unable to write there)?

Now that I've reinstalled 7.01 I am willing to test some things, to find out what's wrong...
;)

P.S. Troubleshooting 101 often helps

hi hirazi,

thx for taking the time reinstalling v7 ;)

as i wrote in my previous post: i only get that error when feeding my sss-network - which lies inside a compound - from outside of the compound with a lightmap. as soon as the lightmip lies inside the compound too, the problems disappear and mental ray produces beautiful sss - btw: kudos to zap who has developed a nice piece of software here ;). so it seems to be not a disk or configuration issue but more a problem of the ports (lightmap port in this case) of the compounds. the weird things is: it worked once.

since i already had to recreate my entire compound - which is fairly complex by the way - because i couldn't import it after exporting it (unspecified failure), i honestly don't wanna redo it from scratch again

regards
valentine

[Hirazi Blue]

Could be that I'm misunderstanding you again, but I'm not certain it has much to do with the compound ports either, because plugging a clip/"writable source" (from User Tools > Create SSS Lightmap) into the provided SimpleSSS and SkinSSS compound does seem to work flawlessly.
I assume your writable source is set to "map" and "float"?

[valentine]

Could be that I'm misunderstanding you again, but I'm not certain it has much to do with the compound ports either, because plugging a "misss_lightmap_write" into the provided SimpleSSS and SkinSSS compound does seem to work flawlessly.
I assume your writable source is set to "map" and "float"?

yes, of course. that was the first thing i doublechecked when those problems arose ;). for better or for worse i gotta have to create a way less complex testcompund later when i'm at my office. so just to be sure: when u create a custom compound including one or more misss_fast and a lightmap_write node whose are feeded with a lightmap from outside and then outputs the results of the lightmap_write as well as of the misss_fast through the outgoing ports of the compound works without lightmapping erros?

regards
valentine

[Hirazi Blue]

I've so far only tried this with the provided SkinSSS & SimpleSSS and about 10 frames of animation, but that seemed to work without a hitch.
(ATM I am nowhere near my workstation, but I'm assuming the fact it worked with the aforementioned compounds means it should work equally well with custom made ones, as there is AFAIK "no magic involved" in the provided ones)

[valentine]

I've so far only tried this with the provided SkinSSS & SimpleSSS and about 10 frames of animation, but that seemed to work without a hitch.
(ATM I am nowhere near my workstation, but I'm assuming the fact it worked with the aforementioned compounds means it should work equally well with custom made ones, as there is AFAIK "no magic involved" in the provided ones)

well, in softimage "should work" has always been "could work" ;)

[MV-]

Hi Valentine,

I came across the very same problem not so long ago. I've been lucky enough to find a solution on my own.
The indexes and secondaryports seem to change/switch when you tweak a compound, causing the lightmap computation to fail.


What you have to do to fix it is quite simple :

1/ Export your SSS compound and open it with notepad or any text/xml editor

2/ Find the line where you can see your misss_lightmap_write shader and remember its index.
The index is "5" in this example.

<node type="shader" progid="Softimage.misss_lightmap_write.1.0" index="5">

3/ Find the exposed ports of the Lightmap (further in the compound file) and replace the "port index=x" by the index of your misss_lightmap_write.
In the previous example the index was "5", so the first index now HAS TO BE set to "5" here too.

<port index="5" portname="lightmap" username="light" displayname="Lightmap">
<secondaryport index="1" portname="lightmap"></secondaryport>
<secondaryport index="2" portname="lightmap"></secondaryport>

The lightmap has to be called first so it can actually compute/write the file.
Then your shallowscatter and deepscatter shaders can be exposed as secondary ports in no particular order.


Hope this helps

[valentine]

Hi Valentine,

I came across the very same problem not so long ago. I've been lucky enough to find a solution on my own.
The indexes and secondaryports seem to change/switch when you tweak a compound, causing the lightmap computation to fail.


What you have to do to fix it is quite simple :

1/ Export your SSS compound and open it with notepad or any text/xml editor

2/ Find the line where you can see your misss_lightmap_write shader and remember its index.
The index is "5" in this example.

<node type="shader" progid="Softimage.misss_lightmap_write.1.0" index="5">

3/ Find the exposed ports of the Lightmap (further in the compound file) and replace the "port index=x" by the index of your misss_lightmap_write.
In this example the index was "5", so the first index HAS TO BE "5".

<port index="5" portname="lightmap" username="light" displayname="Lightmap">
<secondaryport index="1" portname="lightmap"></secondaryport>
<secondaryport index="2" portname="lightmap"></secondaryport>

The lightmap has to be called first so it can actually compute/write the file.
Then your shallowscatter and deepscatter shaders can be exposed as secondary ports in no particular order.


Hope this helps

great, i'm gonna try that one out as soon as possible. thanks & best regards ;)
valentine

[MV-]

Oh, you're welcome! Please let us know if it worked for you ;)

[valentine]

Oh, you're welcome! Please let us know if it worked for you ;)

As expected: it worked

BTW: Those kind of problems are pretty common when using Softimage. Anyway, thx again for sharing your fixes

Regards
valentine