Arnold Rendering Stand-ins Problem

[ichris]

Hello,

I've been trying to troubleshoot this problem for 3 days now with no success so I'm pretty desperate right now and in hope to find a solution as soon as possible here.

I'm working on a project where I need to create an army and stuff and found that Miarmy was the best solution as I'm working in Maya. Also the support with Arnold Renderer is amazing too. But I'm facing a very weird issue.

Every time I setup a frame, then import the .ass file in a stand-in, I get croppings around my soldiers. The cropping happens depending on the camera angle and is most common with the solider heads. For some reason my soldiers's heads get cropped unless the camera is viewing them from above. This happens also with the weapons.

It seems that every agent is placed in a box that is smaller than the model and is cropping it from everywhere. It even happens my soldiers's feet. I checked the bounding box which was larger than the model and even made it huge with no success on fixing the issue. Also made the bone boxes extremely large with no success.

I tried to create a random model and use the stand-ins method to see if the problem was from Arnold itself but I didn't have croppings from any angle. So I'm sure the problem is from Miarmy itself.

For the record I'm using Miarmy v3.0.

I need to know if there is a solution possible and what would be the fix for it.

I attached a preview file showing the problem I'm having. You can clearly see the heads being cropped.

If you would like me to provide anything that might help solve my issue I would gladly do it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Hope to hear from some one soon,
Regards,
Chris

Attachments:

[Yeah YANG]

Hello Chris,

Thank you for your testing!,
Would you mind send us your Maya scene file?

This is maybe the problem from the bounding box calculation.

If your file is sensitive and cannot be shared through forum, please send to [e-mail], we'll keep your privacy.

Cheers!
--Yeah

Aug 21, 2014 17:44:23 GMT -5 ichris said:

Hello,

I've been trying to troubleshoot this problem for 3 days now with no success so I'm pretty desperate right now and in hope to find a solution as soon as possible here.

I'm working on a project where I need to create an army and stuff and found that Miarmy was the best solution as I'm working in Maya. Also the support with Arnold Renderer is amazing too. But I'm facing a very weird issue.

Every time I setup a frame, then import the .ass file in a stand-in, I get croppings around my soldiers. The cropping happens depending on the camera angle and is most common with the solider heads. For some reason my soldiers's heads get cropped unless the camera is viewing them from above. This happens also with the weapons.

It seems that every agent is placed in a box that is smaller than the model and is cropping it from everywhere. It even happens my soldiers's feet. I checked the bounding box which was larger than the model and even made it huge with no success on fixing the issue. Also made the bone boxes extremely large with no success.

I tried to create a random model and use the stand-ins method to see if the problem was from Arnold itself but I didn't have croppings from any angle. So I'm sure the problem is from Miarmy itself.

For the record I'm using Miarmy v3.0.

I need to know if there is a solution possible and what would be the fix for it.

I attached a preview file showing the problem I'm having. You can clearly see the heads being cropped.

If you would like me to provide anything that might help solve my issue I would gladly do it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Hope to hear from some one soon,
Regards,
Chris

[ichris]

Thank you for your reply!

I sent you the scene file by mail. I hope the scene stays private please. Keep me updated if you need anything or find a fix!

Thanks a lot!
Chris

[Yeah YANG]

Thank you Chris for your feedback:)

We'll check it immediately.

Talk you soon.
--Yeah

Aug 21, 2014 20:08:11 GMT -5 ichris said:

Thank you for your reply!

I sent you the scene file by mail. I hope the scene stays private please. Keep me updated if you need anything or find a fix!

Thanks a lot!
Chris

[Yeah YANG]

Hello Chris,

1.
We think your problem was coming from skinning, also your maya scene maybe contain some weird problem. we cannot re-skin
We tested export only 2 the Agent_XXX and into a new scene and then rebuild the scene and the render is OK for the head (better) culling problem.
Solution
So, (1)we highly recommend you export your original agents into a new scene and rebuild it and test them,
(2) simply your geometries.
(3)then re-skin the geometry.

2.
Then, some of your geometries are too complex to render more than 500 agents, so we highly recommend you replace your body geometry with the mesh simpler,
Your mesh is about 50000 vertices, just the man face. that's impossible in real production, and you maynot continue your project later.

I hope this is helpfu.
--Yeah

Aug 21, 2014 20:08:11 GMT -5 ichris said:

Thank you for your reply!

I sent you the scene file by mail. I hope the scene stays private please. Keep me updated if you need anything or find a fix!

Thanks a lot!
Chris

[ichris]

Thanks a lot for your reply!

I think it makes sense concerning the skinning of the geometry and I will try fixing it during the weekend.

For the dense geometry I'm using, I had a lot of crashing issues because of the dense mesh and I tried to simplify it as much as I could, but those agents will be placed next to real people and I can't lose too much resolution in the face but I will follow your advice and lower my mesh's resolution a bit.

I got a question that isn't really in this subject, but I hope you can answer it anyway. Some of my agents are holding torches. What can I do to make those torches lit on fire in the scene? I tried using the head of the torch as a fluid emitter but it didn't work. My fix was to make the tip of the torch white so that i can track it later and add a 2D fire element in After Effects. But is there a way to add fire in Maya while using Miarmy?

Anyway, thank you so much for your support! I'll get back to you after i try fixing my scene and hopefully it'll all be alright!

Best regards,
Chris

[Yeah YANG]

Hi Chris,

1.
You're welcome, you'd better export the original agent and then reduce some of the geochemistry then skin them again.
Otherwise you may only render small amount of agents.

2.
You can bake the locator on the joint and then emit the fluid/particle from them.
068 Bake Joint Position
in the video tutorials.

Cheers!
--Yeah

Aug 21, 2014 22:39:39 GMT -5 ichris said:

Thanks a lot for your reply!

I think it makes sense concerning the skinning of the geometry and I will try fixing it during the weekend.

For the dense geometry I'm using, I had a lot of crashing issues because of the dense mesh and I tried to simplify it as much as I could, but those agents will be placed next to real people and I can't lose too much resolution in the face but I will follow your advice and lower my mesh's resolution a bit.

I got a question that isn't really in this subject, but I hope you can answer it anyway. Some of my agents are holding torches. What can I do to make those torches lit on fire in the scene? I tried using the head of the torch as a fluid emitter but it didn't work. My fix was to make the tip of the torch white so that i can track it later and add a 2D fire element in After Effects. But is there a way to add fire in Maya while using Miarmy?

Anyway, thank you so much for your support! I'll get back to you after i try fixing my scene and hopefully it'll all be alright!

Best regards,
Chris

[ichris]

Hello Yeah,

So apparently my project was bugged and after exporting the agent and importing it in a new scene it finally worked!

You won't believe how thankful I am so again thank you a lot for your help!

Concerning the joint baking, apparently creating locators for an end joint doesn't work But it's not really a big of a deal because i can simply parent the emitter to the locator and place the emitter in the right position.

So thanks again for the tips and the support provided!

If i run into any more problems I will make sure to give you my feedback.

Best Regards,
Chris