Matte Objects Rollout

• Krakatoa is a specialized particle renderer. In order to integrate the resulting particle renders into final shots, the renderer has to allow the interaction of particles with scene geometry, including occluding particles with scene objects and casting shadows from scene objects onto particles.

UI Controls

>Enable Matte Objects checkbutton

• This option can be used to toggle the use of Matte Objects on and off.
• It was checked by default in v1.1.3 and eariler, but is unchecked by default since v1.5.0.
• It requires a valid Named Selection Set or Matte Objects File Sequence to be specified in order to use Matte Objects.

SuperSampling spinner

Available in Krakatoa v1.5.0 and higher

• The spinner defines the number of Anti-Aliasing sub-divisions.
  • When a particle is partially covered by a Matte Object, it could be assumed either fully in front of fully behind the object.
  • By increasing this value, multiple samples will be calculated to determine the actual coverage.
  • In Krakatoa v1.5.x, this was performed only when >Save Multiple Layers was checked.
  • In Krakatoa v1.6.0 and higher, the spinner can be used in single layer mode too.

>Save Multiple Layers checkbutton

Available in Krakatoa v1.5.0 and higher

• When rendering semi-transparent Matte Objects (which includes the anti-aliased edges of the Matte Object), some particles would be found to be completely in front of the Matte Object while others would be behind it.
  • Since the Matte Object is semi-transparent, both sets of particles would have to be visible, but would need to be composited differently with the Matte Geometry Rendering.
• Checking this option will add a Krakatoa_OccludedLayer Render Element to the Render Elements Manager and enable it to produce the background image containing occluded particles, while the regular render output image will contain only particles that are completely unoccluded by Matte Objects.
• Unchecking this option will disable but not remove the Krakatoa_OccludedLayer Render Element and cause all particles to be rendered into the regular render output image.
  • Once rendered, the background particles, the Matte Objects Rendering and the foreground particles can be combined in a compositing application for correct results - see this tutorial for an example.
• The same control is duplicated as “>Save Multi.Layers” in the Main Controls rollout.

Note: In v1.5.x, the Background Layer was always saved as OpenEXR image using internal code. The Render Element in v1.6.0 and higher allows any file format to be used to save the Background layer.

Named Selection Sets listboxes

• You can specify a sub-set of all scene objects using one or more Named Selection Sets.
  • The left listbox will display all Named Selection Sets found in the scene.
  • The right listbox will define the Named Selection Sets to be used for Matte Objects.
  • To update both lists, press the “Update Named Selection Set Lists” button.
  • In 3ds Max 9 and higher, creating, deleting and renaming Named Selection Sets via the regular 3ds Max UI will automatically trigger an update of the Krakatoa GUI. In 3ds Max 8 and earlier, the user will have to press the Update button after these operations.
  • To move a Named Selection Set from one list to another, either double-click it with the mouse or press the corresponding [>] or [<] button located between the lists.
  • To see the objects which are part of a single Named Selection Set on the Matte Objects list, press the “Select Highlighted” button - the objects in the current Named Selection Set highlighted in the right list will be selected in the scene.
  • To see all matte objects defined by all Named Selection Sets on the Matte Objects list, press the “Select All” button - all will be selected in the scene.
• To simplify the creation and updating of Named Selection Sets used as Krakatoa Matte Objects, the GUI provides a shortcut to enter a name of a new or existing Named Selection Set and a button to Create or Update it using the current scene selection.

Named Selection Sets Workflows

Creating A Matte Objects Named Selection Set

• Create 3 spheres to use as Matte Objects.
• Select the 3 spheres.
• The default name in the edit text field is “KrakatoaMatteObjects” - leave it as is.
• Press the “Create/Update Matte Selection Set” button.
  • RESULT: A new Named Selection Set will be created. It will contain the 3 selected spheres and its name will appear both on the Named Selection Sets drop-down list of the Main Toolbar of 3ds Max AND on the Matte Objects Named Selection Sets list in the Krakatoa GUI.

Let’s create two Boxes to also be used as Matte Objects. You can either create a new Named Selection Set, update the existing one that contains the spheres using Krakatoa’s GUI, or use the Named Selection Set editor of 3ds Max to do the same.

Adding Matte Objects By Creating Another Named Selection Set

• Select the two boxes
• Enter a new name in the text field, for example “Matte Boxes”
• Press the “Create/Update Matte Selection Set” button.
  • RESULT: A second Named Selection Set called “Matte Boxes” will be added to the right list and to the scene. Both the spheres and the boxes will be used as Matte Objects.

Adding Matte Objects To The Existing Named Selection Set

• Click on the first Named Selection Set called “Krakatoa Matte Objects” - note that its name will be placed automatically into the edit text field!
• Press the “Selected Highlighted” button - all 3 spheres will be selected.
• While holding the Ctrl key pressed, click each of the two boxes - this way you will have the 3 spheres and 2 boxes selected.
• Press the “Create/Update Matte Selection Set” button to UPDATE the existing Named Selection Set
  • RESULT: All 5 objects - 3 spheres and two boxes - will now be used as Matte Objects.

Adding Matte Objects Using The 3ds Max Named Selection Sets Editor

• Click the Edit Named Selection Sets” icon in the Main Toolbar of 3ds Max.
• Locate the “KrakatoaMatteObjects” selection set and expand it.
• Select the two boxes in the scene and click the Add Selected Objects icon (3rd from the left with + sign and and arrow).
  • RESULT: The two selected boxes will be appended to the existing Named Selection Set and will be used by Krakatoa as Matte Objects.

Removing Objects From The Matte Objects Named Selection Set

• Click on the first Named Selection Set called “KrakatoaMatteObjects” - note that its name will be placed automatically into the edit text field!
• Press the “Select Highlighted” button - all 3 spheres will be selected.
• Press and hold the Alt key and deselect one of the 3 spheres - now only 2 are selected.
• Press the “Create/Update Matte Selection Set” button to UPDATE the existing Named Selection Set.
  • RESULT: Only the two selected spheres will remain part of the selection set, the deselected one will not render as matte object anymore.

NOTE: If the Render Particles From option in the Main Controls rollout is set to “Geo.Vertices”, any renderable (non-hidden, render property checked) geometry objects not used as Matte Objects will be considered particle systems. So if an object is renderable as geometry vertices and at the same time is defined as part of a Matte Objects Named Selection Set, it will be used as Matte Object.

Matte Objects Info, Status and Open Explorer controls

• The info field will show the number of Matte Objects in the currently highlighted set, their face count and the total number of Matte Objects defined via Named Selection Sets and the total number of faces.
  • You cannot type in this field, but you can select and copy the text from it.
• The status color indicator will display one of the following colors depending on the specified matte objects:
  • Gray - no matte objects are defined.
  • Green - matte objects are defined and all of them will be used.
  • Yellow - matte objects are defined and some of them will not be used due to object or layer settings affecting the renderer.
  • Red - all defined matte objects will not render due to object or layer settings affecting the renderer.
• The Open Krakatoa Matte Objects Explorer button can be used to launch a dialog showing the names, named selection sets, face counts, render and layer settings of every object.
• Krakatoa will let you directly fix some of the issues.
• You can use the “Update Named Selection Sets Lists” button to force an update of the status indication.

Load Initial Depth Map File Sequence

• This group of controls allows you to use pre-saved depth maps from any Max renderer (incl. Scanline, mental ray, Brazil r/s, finalRender, Gelato and V-Ray) and use the depth values stored in the sequence to control the visibility of particles during the final pass. This option provides 3 modes:

Camera Space Z Depth

• This mode is supported by Gelato.
• The Z-Depth values contain the actual distance from the surface to the image plane in world coordinates where a value of 0 is at the image plane and 100.0 is at 100 generic units in front of the camera parallel to the camera’s negative Z axis.

Normalized Z Depth

• This mode is supported by some 3rd party renderers like V-Ray using a custom Render Element.
• The files contain a normalized distance between two user-defined values (Near and Far) with the black values at the near distance and white values at the far distance.
• When loading such files, the Z Near and Z Far spinners have to be set to the same values as in the Render Element that generated the sequence.

Inverted Normalized Z Depth

• This mode is supported by 3ds Max and most 3rd party renderers.
• In this mode the files contain normalized values between the user-defined Near and Far distances, but the white values are at the Near distance and the black values are at the Far distance. When loading such files, the Z Near and Z Far spinners have to be set to the same values as in the Render Element that generated the sequence.

• To enable this feature, select a valid file sequence using the […] button in front of the text field and check the >Use Depth Map File Sequence option.
• The [E] button will open the Windows Explorer at the current path (if it is a valid path).

SEE ALSO

• Matte Objects and Shadows Tutorial