Krinstinka KH3 Point Color, how to get gradient color?

[Caveman]

Hi there everyone.

By using the KH3 Point Color node, I can never get the gradient to work on the strands. When I check the example files they work fine, but in my own scenes they give me constant colors. Driving me nuts here

Looked for an answer in the forum, but couldn't find one. Maybe it's too basic and I am too noob.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Mathaeus]

Hello,
there is no such node in latest downloads. There is only 'kH Point Color', not strand color. Anyway you could try something like this, to set strand color in rendering. But, this won't display anything in viewport. Your renderer should support the loading of strand array attribute in render tree, too. If I'm correct, it's only Mental Ray who supports this. However, this transfers of a lot more of additional data. Should be more convenient to set the gradient directly in render tree, then modulate the render tree gradient by some per point attribute.

[Caveman]

Hi,

thank you so much for the attention, but I guess I couldn't describe my problem correctly. So here is a screen shot. So how do I make my hairs look like yours, as it is really very difficult to see what I am doing without any variation in color.

[Caveman]

Hi,

Got it to work, as I suspected it was a noob mistake. But one very east to make. I was clicking on the wrong part of the uv in the transient explorer, but even on picking the wrong thing the node returns to its normal look i.e not red. That was what tripped me up, if the node had stayed red on picking the wrong thing I might have tried clicking some where else but it didn't

[Caveman]

I hope I am not offending anyone through my noob posts, I must add that KH3 Point Color doesn't seem to work on Unfold uvs. They require unique uv's first. But once I get it to work with unique uv's, if I then unwrap uv's using Unfold, and pick these new uv's from the KH3 Emit from polymesh explorer even Unfold works

Nope still not working. Thought it worked, but tried the same process later but couldn't achieve the same result again.

look later post

[Mathaeus]

If no one is offended by my posts, I must add that KH3 Point Color doesn't seem to work on Unfold uvs. They require unique uv's first. But once I get it to work with unique uv's, if I then unwrap uv's using Unfold, and pick these new uv's from the KH3 Emit from polymesh explorer even Unfold works

As it is already described in docs , it's your part of job to describe the correct scene reference. It's just 'default' reference to probably most frequent 'texture_coordinates_auto' or like, which obviously won't work with different name, for example the name created by SI loft operator, or Unfold.

[Caveman]

Well I was wrong it doesn't work can you please tell me which one I should pick to get the color in the viewport. I did explore and did the picking session but nothing except the default name of"cls.Texture_Coordinates_AUTO.Texture_Projection.UVs"works

I have to ask should I connect the Emitter Polygon mesh in the "Deformed Emitter In Name" port of "kH3 Initialize Polymesh Emitter 2" if not connected the Get Data and few other nodes inside "kH3 Initialize Polymesh Emitter 2" stays red.

[Mathaeus]

Well I was wrong it doesn't work can you please tell me which one I should pick to get the color in the viewport. I did explore and did the picking session but nothing except the default name of"cls.Texture_Coordinates_AUTO.Texture_Projection.UVs"works

Once you're in ICE, you're searching for blue rectangle icons in explorer, not gray icons. When you pick on 'explorer' button (not 'pick' button), you should see a long list of blue icons. Your icon is called UVs, and it's probably located somewhere under a name of your texture projection.

With inevitable 'I hate to say that', I think it's good idea to get familiar with common tasks of ICE, before playing with kH stuff. Otherwise, every second step will look like a current experience.

[Caveman]

Wow! thank you very much for your patience with me Well I know basic stuff that can be done with ICE like emitting particles, rigid bodies etc. But I have a feeling I missed more than a few of the fundamental stuff on ICE. I will finish reading the documentations on ICE. And thanks again I learned something great from you today.

[Mathaeus]

I have to ask should I connect the Emitter Polygon mesh in the "Deformed Emitter In Name" port of "kH3 Initialize Polymesh Emitter 2" if not connected the Get Data and few other nodes inside "kH3 Initialize Polymesh Emitter 2" stays red.

Yeah I forget to answer to that. Entire compound in red, that's something to take care of. Red nodes *inside* the kH compound, but entire compound is not red - this is not your part of job . Ok seriously, there is 'first valid' ICE node somewhere. If there is input, and input is valid, compound takes this input. In mentioned case, you want the deformed mesh as input, if you're planning to deform hair, according to deformation of underlying mesh, also there is 'kH deform hair' somewhere in main ICE tree. Otherwise, missing ( or, not valid)input is just ignored and replaced by values from original.

Generally, Kristinka Hair is trying to save you of:
1: digging into compounds
2: dealing with custom attributes ( or exactly, they have a non abstract names)
3: running into ICE context issues ( has a lot of 'forcing' of strand array context)
4: having a more than one ICE tree for one hair ( not all the time, but it tries to do that)

It's structured in as much 'natural' way. Root first, then trunk, leaves at the end - or in kH names: emitter, form, modifier.
Each compound tries to create a visual, recognizable effect, immediately. This 'initialize' node is unwanted exception, unfortunately I didn't find a way to avoid this thing.

More or less, similar to 'easy to use' level already present with ICE factory particle compounds.

[Caveman]

Hi, thanks again, got it.

Also, I feel obliged to share with others, what I did with your help to get my scene working. So here are a few screenshots. Thread solved