Help with mi_info and displacement ??

[rohitwesley]

Hi my fellow programers,

I am new to mental ray programing . Just read up on it and have started coding a displacement shader for maya . I am using visual c++ 2010 express to compile. I have two questions :

1. Where does the mi_info() output/print while running the shader in maya ?
(I'm really having a hard time debugging without a print statment)

2. I am creating a algorithm based texture that stores texture information in an array that needs to be called once for creation and then again for being applied as a displacement map onto an object . What would be the best way to approach this, Namely How would I store the texture to be called later for displacement ?

Any suggestion will be most helpful . Thanks a tone in advanced .

[bart]

1. In the Output Window.
If you want to see it, ensure that verbosity is set to "info" level. The mi_ printing utilities are associated with the different verbosity levels. For example,
mi_warn, mi_info, mi_progress, mi_debug, relate to warning, info, progress, debug (detailed in Maya UI) level verbosity. In Maya, that is set in the Render > Render Current Frame (options box on right).

2. Keep in mind that displacement happens before shading. Conceptually, you can think of displacement as happening at the end of scene creation, then rendering starts. Its also called the scene pre-processing phase. So you could possibly create the texture in your displacement init shader. Or you could run your render in two passes.

[rohitwesley]

Thanks a tone . That really helped . I finally can debug .