Exclude geometry from Render TOP?

General TouchDesigner Discussion
1

Is there a way to exclude specific Geometry COMPs from a Render TOP but select everything else? For example, can one define Geometry COMPs to be excluded after a wildcard (*)?

2

You can switch the render flag off on Geometry COMPs or the Render parameter on their MATs, but that won’t work if you want to render those in another Render TOP. You’re probably better off just specifying the list of Geometry COMPs.

3

Thanks for the response, tetkin!

I think switching render flags/parameters on individual COMPs might add a lot of complexity to the process, and listing all of the Geo COMPs to be included can be a bear when I have renders that include scores of Geo COMPs. If I’m rendering 100 Geo COMPs and want to exclude 2, it seems a bit much to list the remaining 98. It would be much simpler to have a wildcard (*) and just list the two to be excluded.

For now, my workaround is in the form of a script that automatically adds a(n arbitrarily named) prefix ‘p1_’ to all my Geo COMPs. I have ‘p1_*’ in the ‘geometry’ parameter of my Render TOP. Any Geo COMPs to be excluded would simply not share this prefix.

Any other ideas/suggestions are welcome.

4

You can also use DAT export tables to set the Render parameter for a bunch of things using a pattern:

path | parameter | value

thingsnottorender/* | render | 0

5

Hey,

you can use the ^ wildcard to not match a geometry.

^geo*

in the Geometry parameter of the Render TOP would render all geometries not starting with geo.
derivative.ca/wiki088/index. … n_Matching

Cheers
Markus

2 Likes
6

Ah, thanks Markus! This is exactly what I was searching for. :smiley:

7

Ohhhh! I had been trying to use “!” as a “not” for wildcards and gave up. After seeing Snaut suggest “^” I wondered if there was a list of such things… somehow I didn’t think to look up pattern matching on the wiki until I saw this thread :open_mouth: so, thanks!

This will be very useful :smiley: derivative.ca/Forum/viewtopi … ack#p14077

8

How would one string together a bunch of nots or ^'s? For example render everything except banana, orange and pear?

1 Like
9

I also have this question!

10

Just seeing this being not fully answered. Stringing together ^'s is not currently possible.

How to get around this depends on context:

  • can you use the render parameter on the geo components instead?
  • can you make use of tags and the .findChildren() method to only specify geo comps with a certain tag?

cheers
Markus