CTR_ProcTexPlugin is a plug-in for creating and editing procedural textures in Maya that the CTR system can use. The procedural textures generated by this plug-in can be applied to 3D models in the same way as normal textures.
Procedural textures are automatically generated using fixed features of the CTR system. Procedural textures use less memory and have high resolution.
See section "5.8 Procedural Textures" in the CTR Graphics Primer for more detailed information about procedural textures.
This plug-in is provided as a sample tool. It does not include a plug-in feature for exporting the data created to a file. To export the data to a file and display it on the CTR system, you need a separate exporter. This tool does not support the export plug-in in NintendoWare for CTR.
CTR_ProcTexPlugin requires the following environment.
| OS | Windows 7 64-bit |
| Version | Autodesk Maya 2012, Maya 2013, Maya 2013 Extension2, Maya 2014 All 64-bit versions |
| Other | Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 redistributable package (x86) Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 redistributable package (x64) |
There are no plans to develop plug-ins for DCC tools other than Maya (such as 3ds Max or Softimage).
Run CTR_ProcTexPlugin_Setup.(version number).exe while Maya is not running. Click Install to start the setup wizard in a separate window.
When you click Next in the setup wizard, the versions of Maya that the plug-in supports are shown. Versions of Maya that are not installed appear as Not installed. Click OK to proceed to the custom setup screen.
The setup wizard automatically determines which version of Maya is installed and selects the installation destination accordingly. If there are unnecessary installation destinations, remove them from the installation manually. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.
Run CTR_ProcTexPlugin_Setup.(version number).exe while Maya is not running. When the setup wizard starts, it will show two buttons, Uninstall and Close. Select Uninstall. The setup wizard automatically completes the uninstallation. Click the Close button to finish the uninstallation process.
The default templates will be deleted, but newly added templates will not be deleted. Manually delete any unnecessary templates.
Note: Default templates that have been edited and saved with the same name will be automatically deleted.
The operations to perform in Maya are as follows.
First, the plug-in needs to be loaded.
Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager from the menu, and then load the CTR_ProcTex.mll file.
To preview procedural textures, hardware texturing must be enabled.
Enable Hardware Texturing in the Shading menu.
Also, in the Renderer menu, select High Quality Rendering for high-quality previews. The bake resolution for the procedural texture can be selected with the Color textures resolution option. There is a tradeoff between performance and quality, so select resolutions as necessary.
Previews with Viewport 2.0 are not currently possible.
CTR_ProcTexPlugin is a shading node plug-in. It is shown as a 2D texture node when creating render nodes.
If this node is assigned to a color, the transparency is also automatically assigned the same node. This is because CTR_ProcTexPlugin handles colors and transparencies simultaneously.
Using the template browser, you can load templates and add the results of edits to templates. Using templates as the basis for the pattern you want makes it easier to create procedural textures.
Template data is saved in \Users\(username)\Documents\maya\CTR_ProcTex\template.
There are times when textures are hard to check if the templates are simply loaded. In such cases, try repeating the UV or changing the offset.
The templates included in this plug-in may be used in products regardless of whether they have been edited.
The various attributes provided for procedural textures can be set using the GUI. See the CTR Graphics Primer or CTR DMPGL 2.0 Programming Guide for details about the attributes.
G functions and shifting/clamping can be set visually by clicking the browser buttons.
This plug-in has a feature for saving binaries for use in the CTR_SDK sample demos, although this requires the preparation on an independent exporter as mentioned in a previous section. This is run by selecting the Save Binary command at the bottom of the plug-in.
Use this feature as an easy way to check the data. These binaries do not include animation data.
Below is a list of the attributes that can be obtained by using MEL/Python or API functions. This plug-in does not come with a feature for writing, so prepare output for each attribute separately.
There are attributes that have values for which the positions are difficult to obtain with scripts, such as the color table, so Nintendo recommends accessing them through the API functions.
| Purpose | Attribute Name | Detail | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Color Lookup Table | samplerRgb | An array that includes information for each key. | ||
| Alpha Lookup Table | samplerAlpha | An array that includes information for each key. | ||
| Color Modulation Lookup Table | samplerRgbMap | An array that includes information for each key. | ||
| Noise Modulation Lookup Table | samplerNoiseMap | An array that includes information for each key. | ||
| Noise | U | Frequency | noiseFreqU | Each item of information is a floating-point number. The amplitude is limited to a range of [-8, 8] by the CTR specifications. |
| Phase | noiseTransU | |||
| Amplitude | noiseScaleU | |||
| V | Frequency | noiseFreqV | ||
| Phase | noiseTransV | |||
| Amplitude | noiseScaleV | |||
| Shift | U | shiftU |
0=odd numbers 1=even numbers 2=None |
|
| V | shiftV |
|||
| Clamp | U | clampU |
0=SYMMETRICAL_REPEAT_DMP 1=MIRRORED_REPEAT 2=PULSE_DMP 3=CLAMP_TO_EDGE 4=CLAMP_TO_ZERO_DMP |
|
| V | clampV |
|||
| G functions | Color | rgbMap |
0=PROCTEX_U_DMP 1=PROCTEX_V_DMP 2=PROCTEX_U2_DMP 3=PROCTEX_V2_DMP 4=PROCTEX_ADD_DMP 5=PROCTEX_ADD2_DMP 6=PROCTEX_ADDSQRT2_DMP 7=PROCTEX_MIN_DMP 8=PROCTEX_MAX_DMP 9=PROCTEX_RMAX_DMP |
|
| Alpha | alphaMap |
|||
Previews in Maya may not always exactly match what you see in CTR development hardware or in the actual product. In particular, the resolution is lower than it is in CTR development hardware or actual products. Also, this plug-in is not compatible with some features, such as LOD or minimization filtering.
When UV is edited or new UVs are assigned, black regions sometimes appear on the texture. In such cases, pressing the Refresh button at the top of the plug-in will cause the texture to be re-evaluated and displayed normally. If you select the realtime check box next to the Refresh button, the texture will be redrawn continuously. However, operations like UV edits sometimes slow down when using realtime drawing. This region occurs because of a problem with Maya previews. It does not affect texture writing.
This plug-in does not support LOD features (including LOD bias and LOD filtering) for textures, minimization filtering, or color table offsets. A user-implemented exporter is required to use these features.
For phase animations only, they can be looped while maintaining the same orientation. See section 10.8 Configuring the Noise in the CTR DMPGL 2.0 Programming Guide.
"Data could be lost"
This error appears when a Maya scene created with this plug-in is opened in an environment where this plug-in is not installed. The ctr_ProcTex node is replaced with an empty node.
Note: If the data is saved again in this state, the Maya scene could be broken.
This package includes sample data (the same image as the one at the top of this document) for Maya 2012. Feel free to use this procedural texture as you see fit.
Added the 2014 version as a compatible Maya version.
CTR-06-0302-001-B
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