Contortionist texture question

[WHD]

Hi All,

I've used Contortionist a number of times over the years but I've never run into this issue before in part because I don't think I've tried to deform a textured model before.

I have created a textured model and am using contortionist to deform it along a path made with an effector. A render of the model prior to adding the plugin looks proper. However after it is deformed along the path the texture appears to be gone. I have been using a master material but then tried to apply the texture as a per model texture with no improvement. Anyone know whats going on and how to fix this?

Bill

PS... I should add that the textures are not UV but simple flat planar textures. Pretty strait forward.

[WHD]

Hi All,

After seeing no response here I contacted Blair directly and this is the portion of his response relating to this question.

Bill

You probably need to texture the plugin group instead of the children.

Technically, the plugin generates geometry using the child vertices and

polygons as a reference.

IIRC, plugins that generate geometry can't make use of textures from other

sources.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Bill,

Im sorry, I lost this thread last night, I probably clicked on it, but after some distraction, I didnt finish it.

Is it working for you now?

Any problem, feel free to message me.

Thanks

Tom

[WHD]

Hey Tomas,

Turns out that Pathfinder was a better fit for this specific project. Appears that Contortionist prefers textures that are mapped to the plug-in or a procedural shader . In this case neither was a good option because of the arrangement of the models and complexity of the texture layering .

I switched the project over to Pathfinder which produced similar results and handles textures differently according to Blair. All is working fine now.

Seems I had never noticed this issue before because all prior projects that used Contortionist used models with materials that contained no precisely registered texture maps.

Bill

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Bill,

Yeap, its really good see you finding the solution!

We never stop to learn with EIAS.

Thanks

Tom

[gyroo]

S'cuse me coming late to this thread. I've successfully used contortionist on textured objects before. Look at the 'emissions viper' clip in the character section of the gallery. This was animated using contortionist and cablecraft. The model was UV'ed and had both textures and shaders.

Cheers

DaveW

[Tomas Egger]

Ola DaveW,

Could you do a simple proj and a short step by step How you solved with Contortionist?

Thanks

Tom

[gyroo]

Will do.

-----------------------------

Have done. V simple distortion of a textured tube along a spline. No real sorting to do - it just works as I would expect it to.

Quick movie here: http://web.me.com/dave.woolard/eias

Project files here: https://files.me.com/dave.woolard/hxk1dg

Uses contortionist and cablecraft.

Cheers

DaveW

[Tomas Egger]

Ola DaveW,

Everybody here will appreciate!!!

Thank you very much

Tom

[WHD]

Hi Dave and Tomas,

I looked back on my original post and find that I was not very precise in my description. The project I had been working on, to be more clear , had a model with separate parts linked together in parent child form. Each part of the model had its own texture map. This was the circumstance that was not compatible as opposed to a single one part textured model.

Sorry for the confusion.

Bill

[gyroo]

Hi WHD

Wasn't able to do it at the time (in time) but have just redone this with a child (and grandchild) relationship added. Worked fine. As always with deforming anything you can't have scaled it at all beforehand or it goes wrong.

Movie: http://web.me.com/dave.woolard/eias/contortionist_2.html

Project: https://files.me.com/dave.woolard/sj5ybx

Cheers

DaveW

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Dave,

Thanks a lot!!!

Tom