Problems opening a couple of the Example Scenes

Hello,

I downloaded a few of the example scenes from here: www.ofusiontechnologies.com/scenes.html.

I'm running Max 7, but the file in glass.zip - the one described as "a simple glass effect" doesn't open. The error complains about missing Character Studio dlls, which makes me think this might actually be a Max 8 file. Actually, I downloaded and tried to run the next one down - "An Environment map reflection effect using alpha mask to reflect on specific parts of the texture only" - and tried to open it in Max 7 before noticing that it's labeled on the web page as a Max 8+ file. That one gave me the same set of errors as the glass.zip one.

Is the glass.zip file actually a Max 8 file that's mis-labeled?

Also, I got the Nissan350z file to open, but I'm not seeing the headlight bloom that's in the thumbnail. I see that it's camera position dependant, but I made sure hit "c" in the oFusion window so that I'm looking through the camera. Then I played the animation until the cam is in front of the car... No lights whatsoever. Is there more to it than that?

Thanks!

[Edit: upon further investigation, it looks like the headlight texture slots are pointing at a Render monkey directory that - since i don't have Render Monkey - doesn't exist on my machine. This was making it not find Corona.tga. I saw that Corona.tga came with the Max file, though, so I pointed the texture slots at that texture. Still, it didn't work - no lights ]

I will review if the "glass" files are for a different version

Probably the corona shader effect was not updated for the latest shader system updates, i will update it if needed

Was there ever an update of the corona effect in this scene? I have the latest example scene, I'm running ofusion pro, I have the corona texture in place, and the material seems to be pointing at the correct corona shaders. However, I'm not seeing the bright bloom of light, like in the screen shot.

Is there anything else I need to do to get the corona shader working?

I had some problems with the newer shader scenes that were posted in the artist section recently. They don't seem to be avaliable for download on the page now.

The water shaders, and the fur shader that I tried display correctly in the Ofusion viewport, but when exported and loaded into our app, the meshes come out without no materials.

The log says the following:

15:22:29: oSceneLoader: Creating scene on 'Root' node
15:22:29: Mesh: Loading Plane01.mesh.
15:22:29: WARNING: material OceanWater has no supportable Techniques and will be blank. Explanation:
Pass 0: Vertex program TranparentWater_vs cannot be used - not supported.

I thought I'd mention it since someone started a related thread and thought it strange that the shaders worked in ofusion but not in our app. But maybe the shader links were taken down for a reason.

Follow-up/bump: Is there *any* way of getting a corona effect in oFusion? It would be wonderful to have for a sky/sun in my scene.

The corona shader in the Nissan sample scene seems simply to not work.

Lioric,

Probably the corona shader effect was not updated for the latest shader system updates, i will update it if needed

Was that the case? Did an update happen?

Thanks!

Yes, the current scene file must be the updated file with the new corona effect

I will review if the scene was updated as soon as i return to the office

Evak: If any of the advanced samples dont work in your application it is mostly because the samples are made in CG (for broad compatibility) and your application might not be loading the "CG Program Manager plugin" in Ogre (Plugin_CGProgramManager.dll file)

The corona shaders effect sample scene "Nissan350z" was updated for the 1.9.x version, download it form the "advanced samples and shaders page"

It includes updated billboard and corona shaders (light glow is dependant on the camera direction), you need to copy the updated shaders files to the correct shader folder (see the Install.txt file for details)

@lioric, you were right. Someone edited the plugins.cfg and uploaded it to SVN with the CG program manager commented out

The samples are provided in CG but they are created to work as CG or HLSL as needed (they are made and tested to be completely compatible)

If needed you can simply change the shader definition from CG to HLSL and use it in D3D9 render systems without the CG library

Lioric,

The corona shaders effect sample scene "Nissan350z" was updated for the 1.9.x version, download it form the "advanced samples and shaders page"

That sounds great, but I can't find the scene. I tried this page, the "example scenes" page:

http://www.ofusiontechnologies.com/scenes.html

And there's a version of the Nissan scene for Max 7+, but just looking in that zip file, I don't see any files timestamped later than February 2006.

I searched the forums for some other mention of "advanced samples and shaders page," but this is the only one I could find.

I checked on my account page, but I don't see anything there newer than Feb 2008.

I'm VERY interested in seeing the updated scene and shader. Can you give me a link to the "advanced samples and shaders page"?

Hi looks like you have the same problem as me, there's actually a different URL with almost all the shaders with links.

Lioric sent me a url in a support ticket, seems like we both don't have access to the page from our account pages. I'll PM you the URL since I know you have the pro version.

Thanks for the link, Evak!

Did you get that corona example to work? I, unfortunately, still can't get it to work.

Neither the corona sample nor the ShaderFX glow sample work for me. (Well, the ShaderFX one works until I install oFusion's update that makes use of ShaderFX... but I need oFusion's version!)

the corona works fine, I tried it before sending you the link. ShaderFX glow doesn't work for me.

I noticed that in the patches lioric provides there are only modified scripts for Advanced and standard material types. So perhaps those aren't supported in Ofusion.

Still, having said that the glow shader in shaderFX doesn't work either.

Liorics Corona shader definately works.

Evak,

Thanks, that's good to know the oFusion corona works.

Now the question is why isn't working for me . I put the shaders from the download into my Max 9 ofusion directory (replacing the shaders that were in there), and made sure all the texture paths were pointing at textures (some weren't at first).

Do you think there are certain oFusion settings that might affect it?

Can anyone suggest video card settings that might mess up the corona effect?

Any advice is very welcome.

Hmm, all I did was extract the files into a new folder. Copy the shader files to ofusions shader folder, and opened the max file directly from the extracted folder. 3dsmax automaticly looks in the path of the max file for media. So the path in the Ofusion material doesn't matter.

For me it just worked, I have a Geforce 7800GS AGP 256mb

Have you tested with other render system (select OpenGL or D3D9 in the "Viewport" panel)?

Post your ogre.log file created in your max root folder after you load the scene, it will contain hints on why the shader is not being displayed in your machine

Hi Lioric,

Well, I seem to have gotten it working, but I'm not sure how.

Let me describe the sequence of events with this whole thing. I:

- got the sample file, opened it up, and it didn't work.

- checked to see if the textures were pointing in the right place. The corona texture was pointing at a path with RenderMonkey in it. I don't have RenderMonkey installed, so there was no texture at that location.

- pointed the texture path at the Nissan scene directory instead. It found the texture, but the corona still didn't show up.

- saved out the file to a new iteration, with a "_00" suffix: Nissan350Z_00.max.

- posted here looking for solutions.

- tried your suggestion of switching to opengl. Got an exception, and message: "you're advised to save your work." Tried switching back to D3D9, but the error messages continued. Rebooted Max. Stayed in D3D9.

- Looked at the ogre.log, and saw all the extra, non-ofusion shaders it was opening (because I have a few extras, and some backups in .zip format). I thought it might be worth cleaning out my ofusion shader directory of the extra shaders, and .zip files (in case ofusion was getting snagged on these.) Moved them to the desktop.

- Opened up the original Max file from the Nissan directory... And the corona worked! No idea why.

- Went back to Nissan350Z_00.max, and it still didn't work!

- Compared the ogre.logs for the two Max files: the working and the non-working:


Compare: (<)C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\ogre_log_working.txt (15764 bytes)
with: (>)C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\ogre_log_not_working.txt (15764 bytes)

69c69
< D3D9RenderSystem::createRenderWindow "OgreView", 100x100 windowed miscParams: externalWindowHandle=1709002
---
> D3D9RenderSystem::createRenderWindow "OgreView", 100x100 windowed miscParams: externalWindowHandle=1379916
207c207
< Texture: C:\oFusion\nissan350z1.9.16\scenes\nissan350z\Corona.tga: Loading 1 faces(PF_R8G8B8,512x512x1) with hardware generated mipmaps from Image. Internal format is PF_X8R8G8B8,512x512x1.
---
> Texture: C:\oFusion\nissan350z1.9.16\scenes\nissan350z\corona.tga: Loading 1 faces(PF_R8G8B8,512x512x1) with hardware generated mipmaps from Image. Internal format is PF_X8R8G8B8,512x512x1.


The only difference I can see (other than that externalWindowHandle number) is that one is looking for Corona.tga, and the other is looking for corona.tga.

Could uppercase/lowercase really be a problem?

I went back and the material was indeed looking for lowercase, while the texture was uppercase. I think I got them to match up (in Max's material editor anyway), but I still couldn't get Nissan350Z_00.max to work.

I eventually moved the extra shaders back to the ofusion shader directory, and the corona shader continued to work - in the original scene. So I'm assuming the extra files aren't a problem.

My best guess is there's some weirdness with that texture path, and uppercase/lowercase thing.

That's a lot to write with no conclusion. Hope it's of some use.

Oh, and the shader looks great