Hi all, I'm having a strange problem. I'll apply bump mapping to an object, save it to the library, add it to a scene. I've set up a scene, and every so often, when I go to render, the bump mapping won't show up. If I use the material editor eye dropper tool to pick on the material, it shows up as being there, then it will render just fine. Open the scene later, the bump mapping is missing off of other items. This is terrible!! If you've had a similar experience and solution, please let me know. Cheers, davo

Heya, Davo. Long time no see :) - You and your bump map problems.....I swear, you've got a new one every month. As for the material editor, I know it's picky at times. Sometimes to even get it to realize that you've made a change, you have to do exactly what you've done - pick the material a second time. I don't know what causes it, but I've never ran into any huge problems like what you're describing - is this a common occurance with your scenes? And do you have the latest service packs for your version?

Hi Nalif, Yep, I have to double pick the material, and sometimes it won't hold. This happens every once in a while, but on this scene, it's just about all the time. I've had this happen with reflection maps and standard textures as well. d

Are you applying any "partial" mat poses? (PS: Hi Bud, long time to chat)

HI Doug!!! I'm not sure what partial pose is, can you explain?

It's a MAT pose that will only affect select material groups... for instance, if you had a pose that just turns your windows darker, or on a figure that just changed eye color. Poser 5/6 sometimes freaks out with partial mat poses. Doug

no mat poses were used, the bump mapping was applied in p5 directly

Ok, question 2, is your P5 up to date? I personally hated P5 and skipped over to P6. Do you have ANY detached nodes in the material room? P5/6 also freak out sometimes if there are lost nodes that need to be deleted. (P6 has a button to clean it up, P5 dosent) (I think it doesnt)

I don't think there are any detached nodes, it's pretty basic, just a bump map on a material. I can check later on. I'm pretty unimpressed with p5 and p6's bump mapping all together. No matter how hard I try, unless I use the p4 render engine with "ignore shader trees" option checked, I can't use bump mapping. I've tried displacement mapping and I get the same results, shoddy edges on the bump mapping and anomolies where the bump mapping crosses a vertice. CL has acknowleged this problem but has never fixed it.

Davo: The reason for the shoddy edges etc is probably that you need to lower the min shade rate. The lower the shade rate, the more detail it will render, and the crisper - and with how much detail you put into your maps, you'll probably notice a huge difference. But for you, the P4 renderer will always render faster, and that's probably what you're most interested in.

where do you lower the min. shade rate? I prefer p4, it is faster and I don't have to deal with a lot of stupid lighting issues either.

I've had the same thing happen at various times using P5. Not only with bump maps but also with reflection maps and even with the texture as well. When I'd go into the material room and use the eye dropper the missing element would reappear and render fine. I've not figured out why it would happen, it's just something irritable I've learned to live with.

I do that too Farside, but when you have 10-15 items to have to do that to every time you enter a scene, it's ridiculous. There has to be some kind of fix or reason.