Light Angle 2-tone Shader, renders out black in MR

# 1 16-06-2015 , 04:51 PM

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Join Date: Aug 2013

Posts: 38

Light Angle 2-tone Shader, renders out black in MR

Okay, so I've got a random question for something I'm testing out. Simple scene, I just have a helix as a test object and I've applied the default Light Angle Two Tone shader onto it, and created a spotlight to shine on it. Nothing else is changed, just the bare defaults of everything.

If I render it out with Maya Software, the results come out fine with the two tones. However, when I switch to Mental Ray, the light tone renders out fine, but the dark tone - everything that should be colored where the object is in shadows - comes out just pitch black.

user added image

Any thoughts on to why it comes out like that? Again, I haven't touched or change any settings. If I switch the color input to 'Brightness' instead of 'Light Angle', the two tones render out fine in MR, though I'd like to keep it with Light Angle if possible.

Thanks!

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# 2 16-06-2015 , 05:51 PM

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I'm using Maya 2016 and my ramp shader with those settings and a single spotlight doesn't look like that in either renderer or even the viewport or swatch. I know in 2016 raytraced shadows are automatically activated on lights, which could explain your MR render if that's the version you're using. But there seems to be some ambient shading going on in your example. If you can share the scene, I could take a look.

- Genny
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# 3 17-06-2015 , 01:46 AM

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Join Date: Aug 2013

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K, here's the scene:

https://www.filedropper.com/2toneshadertest

I'm in Maya 2014 so not sure how the settings will differ. Thanks!

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# 4 17-06-2015 , 06:03 AM

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Your ramp shader had a translucence of 1.00 while mine had 0.00 which made all the difference. Since I never use this shader, I don't know if these are new defaults in version 2016. Either way, if you turn off raytraced shadows on the light and take the display smoothness on the helix back to zero then the mental ray render will look the same as the Maya software render.

- Genny
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::|| My Maya FAQ ||::

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# 5 17-06-2015 , 06:17 PM

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Join Date: Aug 2013

Posts: 38

Thanks!

Turning off the Raytrace Shadows made it work, I think. If I turn off the Raytrace Shadows, I get the result I want - like how it is with Maya Software. But for some reason, I need to keep my translucence at 1 still, if I bring it to 0, it just goes completely dark?

Weird... but I got the results, so I guess this is working? Huh. But thanks for the help!

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Light Angle 2-tone Shader, renders out black in MR

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