Variation shader on animated clones changes their color

[itsmikem]

Hi. I have a cloner with a material containing the variation shader in the color channel. This cloner has one cube as its child, and has two effectors: a Hide Selection and Random. In both effectors' Parameter tab, Color mode is set to off. In the Random effector's Effector tab, I am animating Maximum and Minimum to create movement. The problem is that these cubes are changing colors until the animation completes. I want each of these cloned cubes to maintain one steady color from start to finish. I am not sure what's causing this. Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you!

[Dr. Sassi]

Hi itsmikem,

I can't reproduce the problem. For future questions, please share an example.

Please have a look here:
https://stcineversityprod02.blob.core.windows.net/$web/Cineversity_Forum_Support/2023_PROJECTS_DRS/20230319_CV4_2023_drs_23_MGvc_01-11.zip

There are two files in ink.
One tries to reproduce the problems.
The other shows an alternative to getting colored Cubes while being able to define them.
The MoGraph Color Shader is set to ID, producing Gray values that are then translated via the Colorizer.

All the best

[itsmikem]

Hi Dr. Sassi, thank you for your response, as always. You've been very helpful to me and I appreciate it. I think I solved this issue. The culprit is the Boole that the clones are sitting in. I have an array arranged as a grid, and the clones are spread out along the z-axis. All of the clones are then flattened down to the same z-position. When they're coming together, they're "trimmed" to within a volume in a Boole. What I noticed was that some of the clones originally reside outside of the Boole volume, so each time one of these clones entered into the Boole, that indexed clone color would change. I tested this without the clone being in a Boole and there wasn't any flickering. Problem solved. Thanks again!

[Dr. Sassi]

Thank you so much for the update, itsmikem.

That is very kind of you.

I'm glad it work for you. If avoiding the Boole works, great.

My best wishes for your project.

[itsmikem]

You're welcome Dr. Sassi. I didn't avoid the boole, I just made it larger to accomodate all of the clones. What I noticed was that clones were changing color, but only when another clone moved to within the previously smaller sized boole. My guess is that it was throwing off the clone indexs somehow.

• Mike

[Dr. Sassi]

Thanks for the extra effort, Mike!

Cheers.