Updating shaders on instanced .ass geometry containing VDBs

[jamesrobinsonvfx]

Hi,

We're trying to randomly instance VDBs onto points containing the "instancefile" attribute in htoa. I've written out a series of vdbs as .ass geometry to disk, and load them at rendertime with the instancefile attribute. This works fine, but since the shader is baked into the ass file, there's no changing it which makes lookdev impossible. Rendering the ass geo without shaders also doesn't allow for shader assignment afterwards. Is there anyway to assign the shader after the fact, or have the ass file reference it relatively? Or perhaps a predefined workflow for instancing VDBs in HtoA that allows for updating shaders without having to rewrite the ass geo? Combining to a single heavy vdb is not an option.

Using Arnold 5.0.2.3 htoa-2.2.2

[frederic.servant]

This is now possible with operators in Arnold 5.1, in particular set_parameter: https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AFHUG/Set+Parameter