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Rendering with Arnold in Maya using the MtoA plug-in.
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Why is Z-Depth anti-aliased inbetween two objects, but not between an object and the background?

6 REPLIES 6
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Message 1 of 7
pixilume
1558 Views, 6 Replies

Why is Z-Depth anti-aliased inbetween two objects, but not between an object and the background?

Please see the screenshot. I do not want filtering, but it happens anyway inbetween objects.

In Max I do not see the option to change the filter-type to closest_filter like there is in C4D and Maya.

3DsMax 2019 / MAXtoA 2.2.961

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Message 2 of 7

We should probably make closest_filter the default for numeric AOVs (it was that way in the Softimage plugin), what do you think ?

Message 3 of 7
aaronfross
in reply to: pixilume

Nicola, the problem appears to be much deeper than that. I don't see any option to change the filter type at all, for any AOVs, in MaxToA. I never realized this until now. This is a major oversight. Does this mean that all AOVs inherit the filter settings from Render Settings > Arnold Renderer tab > Filtering?

And it gets worse from there. As I look at the list of available filters, there are several that are missing. The list in Maya is much longer than in 3ds Max. "Closest" is not even an option *at all* in MaxToA 3.0.65.0.

I suggest that this is a major deficiency in the feature set of MaxToA. 3ds Max needs to support all Arnold pixel filters. 3ds Max needs a UI widget for users to select the filter type for each AOV, just like in Maya.

Message 4 of 7

Yes, we have frequent discussions about redesigning the AOV interface. Right now you are correct, the same filter applies to all the AOVs. It was an attempt to simplify things, that, however, is now showing its limitations. Thanks for your feedback, we'll prioritize the issue.

Message 5 of 7
aaronfross
in reply to: pixilume

Thank you Nicola... I see these attempts to simplify things backfiring all the time. I feel like sometimes the UI design doesn't properly respect the needs or intelligence of users. The fact that the full filtering functionality is exposed in Maya, but not in 3ds Max, is troubling. What does that say about the designers' perception of 3ds Max users? If the assumption is that 3ds Max users are somehow less "technical", or that they need functionality hidden from them, I would say that those assumptions are incorrect and unfairly biased. The MtoA interface is actually more intuitive in many ways, despite the exposure of additional controls. I whole-heartedly support a revision of the MaxToA AOV interface, starting with a re-thinking of the driver-centric model. There's currently no way to change the output file format without deleting and re-adding the AOV.

Message 6 of 7

Ok, thanks for your input.
Back to the initial point, I think for the time being we can simply expose the closest filter in the filters dropdown.

Message 7 of 7
aaronfross
in reply to: pixilume

That's definitely a start, thank you Nicola. Of course, the issue then becomes that all AOVs share the same filter settings. The user will need to run two separate render jobs in order to get the desired result... e.g. Box filter on beauty pass, Closest filter on Z-buffer. And since there's no option to render an AOV by itself without rendering the beauty pass again, this doubles the render time.

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