Preferences

1 Preferences

The Krakatoa Preferences rollout allows users of different skill levels to customize certain aspects of the Krakatoa GUI to match their preferred workflow.

Authorization

This group of controls provides the following options:

Acquire License... - this button will be disabled if a valid license has been acquired, and enabled when in Evaluation mode. Press the button to attempt to acquire a Krakatoa license.
Release License [Evaluation Mode] - this button will be enabled if a valid license has been acquired, and disabled when in Evaluation mode. Press the button to release the Krakatoa license.

Factory and User Defaults

This group of controls provides the following options:

Save Current Settings As Defaults - pressing this button will create an INI file containing all relevant Krakatoa settings (from the data stored inside the renderer, NOT from the GUI like Presets/History do). When Krakatoa is assigned as the current renderer and initializes its properties, the data from the INI file will be used as custom defaults in place of the factory defaults hard-coded in the KrakatoaGUI script.
Revert To Factory Defaults - pressing this button will remove any existing KrakatoaDefaults.INI file (by renaming it to .BAK) and this ensure that new instances of the Krakatoa renderer would initialize using the Factory Defauls. Note that if another KrakatoaDefaults.BAK file already exists, it will be overwritten. You can undo this change by manually renaming the .BAK file to .INI.
>Apply Preset to new PRT Loaders: - when this checkbutton is checked, a custom preset will be loaded each time a new PRT Loader is created. The drop-down list to the right contains all currently available PRT Loader settings. To create a new PRT Loader Preset, follow the instructions on the PRT Loader page.

Log Window

This group of controls allows you to open the Log Window and control its behavior on log output.

>Auto-Open Log Window On Output - when checked, the Log Window will pop up open whenever Krakatoa is writing to it. Default is OFF.
Open the Log Window Now - this button will open the Log Window.

NOTE that there are two built-in MacroScripts in the Krakatoa category which can be placed on a toolbar, menu, QuadMenu or assigned to shortcuts to control the same behavior.

Particle Flow Systems

This group of controls provides allows the user to let Krakatoa change the system limit of PFlow Emitters automatically or manually.

>Auto-Increase PFlow System Limit - Particle Flow Systems are limited artificially to 100,000 particles on creation time. In 3ds Max versions prior to 2008, the value spinner in the System Management rollout allows values up to 10,000,000 to be entered, mostly because the default Birth operator cannot create more than 10 million particles and because until Krakatoa nobody seriously expected a particle system to contain 10 million particles. But this is a User-Interface-level limit, not a technical limit - a Particle Flow system can contain more than 10 million particles. This option allows Krakatoa to increase the limit in all Particle Flow systems to 100 million unless the limit is already set to an even higher value.
Increase PFlow System Limit Now! - pressing this button will search the scene for PF Source objects and increase their system limit to 100,000,000 immediately.

Deadline Detection And Integration

 Available in: Krakatoa v1.1.2 and higher

This group of controls provides means to specify the version of Deadline to be used when submitting Partition jobs.

The drop-down list provides three options:
- Do Not Detect Deadline - Deadline will not be searched for. This is useful when a machine that used to be connected to a Deadline farm has been temporarily removed from it - the detection could take a while before Krakatoa figures out the Repository is not accessible.
- Use Deadline 2.x - This is the old default - previous versions of Krakatoa supported Deadline 2.6 and 2.7. These versions of Deadline can be installed parallel to Deadline 3, so you can use this item to specify you want to use the older version.
- Use Deadline 3 or higher - Krakatoa will attempt to detect Deadline 3 which is installed and searched for at a different location and co-exist with Deadline 2.7.
When first started and if the option Do Not Detect Deadline is not explicitly specified, Krakatoa will attempt to find both versions of Deadline.
- If only one of the two versions could be detected, it will be used automatically.
- If both could be detected, Deadline 3 will be selected.
- In the latter case, you can manually switch to 2.7 using the drop-down list and it will be used in future sessions instead.
Note that some controls in the Partitioning rollout will be different
- Deadline 3 does not have a Category but provides a Group list,
- Deadline 3 does not support ">Render Only On Machines In Pool" anymore, so it is grayed out.
- The Open Deadline Monitor button will also change its text to show which version was detected and will be used and will open the corresponding version of Deadline.
The Detect Deadline Now! button can be used after switching the list to enforce a new detection. This will close the Partitioning rollout and after opened again, it will show the new Deadline controls if successfully detected.

User-Defined UI Behaviors

This group of controls allows the user to configure certain behaviors of the Krakatoa GUI according to his or hers skill level and preferred way of working.

Skill Levels

The [BEGINNER] button will preset the options listed below to the ones marked with (B).
The [ADVANCED] button will preset the options listed below to the ones marked with (A).
The [EXPERT] button will preset the options listed below to the ones marked with (E).

When switching to and from "Blended Z-Depth" or "Blended Camera Distance" Color Mode

Warn Me About Changing '>Use Lights' and '>Post-Divide By Alpha' to optimal settings (B) - when switching to Blended Z-Depth or Blended Camera Distance color modes, having Lights turned on and/or Post-Divide turned off makes no practical sense. Krakatoa would successfully render an image, but the content would not be a valid Z-Depth pass. In this mode, the user will be informed by a pop up window about the correct settings and after confirming them the checkbuttons will be switched automatically to the correct settings. This will be done both when turning Z-Depth rendering on and off.
Change '>Use Lights' and '>Post-Divide By Alpha' to optimal settings without warning (A) - when this option is selected, the correct settings will be applied automatically without user intervention (no pop up warning like in the above case).
Do not change settings (E) - when this option is selected, no changes will be made, assuming the user is an expert who knows what he is doing (even if it makes no sense)

When switching to and from 'Save Particles To File Sequence' Mode

Open and Close the 'Particle Partitioning' Rollout (B) - this (rather intrusive) option will open and close the Partitioning rollout whenever the user enables and disables the saving of particle sequences. It was meant to remind the user that when saving a lot of particles, using Partitions is probably what he should use.
Do NOT Open, but do Close when switching to 'Render Scene Particles' (A) - when this option is selected, the Partitioning rollout will not open when Save Particles To File Sequence is selected, but if the user opened the Partitioning rollout manually and then switched Krakatoa back to Render Scene Particles mode, the rollout will be closed automatically because it is of no use when rendering.
Open, but do NOT Close when switching to 'Render Scene Particles' - this is a variation of the first option where the rollout will never be closed. Added just for completeness.
Do NOT change 'Particle Partitioning' Rollout Open/Close state at all. (E) - this option disables any help with opening or closing the Particle Partitioning rollout. It is up to you to open and close it as you need.

When creating a new PRT File Loader

Open File Dialog after Loader Creation at Current Save Path, if none - at Default Path (B)(A) - when this option is selected and a new PRT Loader is created from the Particle Loaders rollout of the Krakatoa GUI, the Add Files... button will be pressed and the Open File dialog will be opened automatically, assuming that if you created a loader, you want to load something. If there is a valid save path in the Save Particles rollout, Krakatoa will assume that you want to load the particles that you saved using that path. If there is no valid save path specified, Krakatoa will use the Default Path specified in the Preferences rollout just below this option. If there is no Default Path specified, the dialog will open at the current path from the last file operation.
Open File Dialog after Loader Creation at Default Path - when this option is selected and a new PRT Loader is created from the Particle Loaders rollout of the Krakatoa GUI, the Add Files... button will be pressed and the Open File dialog will be opened automatically at the location specified in the Default Path field underneath the option in the Preferences rollout (see below).
Do NOT Open File Dialog after Loader Creation (E) - when this option is selected, the PRT Loader will be created without automatically presenting the user with the Open File dialog.

Default Path

The Path field can be used to specify the Default Path to be used when creating a new PRT Loader as specified in the first option above.
- Paste a path into the text field or enter a path manually. If it does not exist, you will be prompted about creating it. If it cannot be created, the field will revert to the last known value.
- Press the [H] button to search for already used save paths in the History records.
- Press the [...] button to pick an existing path
- Press the [E] button to reveal the current Default Path location in Windows Explorer.

Of course, you can set all options to ANY combination of settings to match your preferred workflow. The settings will be stored in a local INI file and will persist between 3ds Max sessions.

When adding File Sequiences to a PRT Loader,

 Available in Krakatoa v1.1.0 and higher

Set ALL Sequences To Display In BOTH Viewport and Renderer (B) - this option is the default behavior of Krakatoa v1.0.1 - any sequence loaded will be active in both the viewport and the renderer.
Set NO Sequence To Display In Viewport, ALL To Display In Renderer (A) - this option loads new sequences to render but does not show them in the viewport. This is useful when loading sequences with a lot of particles and you don't want to waste time drawing them in the viewports but want to render them all.
Set ONLY FIRST Sequence To Display In Viewport, ALL In Renderer - this option is very useful when loading partitions with a lot of particles but you want to represent them by just a single partition in the viewport, while still rendering them all.
Set ALL To Display NEITHER In Viewport NOR In Renderer (E) -- this option adds sequences to the list but does not display or render them until the user specifies explicitly via the PRT Loader's UI or the File Sequence Manager which ones should be displayed and which will be rendered.

Custom Checkbutton Colors

 Available in Krakatoa v1.1.0 and higher

This feature allows the customization of the highlight colors shown when a checkbox option is activated. This way, the user can easily distinguish the rollouts of the Krakatoa GUI by "feeling" them based on the common color. This group of controls contains the following options:

>Use Custom Checkbutton Colors - when checked, the custom colors defined in this section will be enabled and used by the Krakatoa GUI. When unchecked, the default UI color for active checkboxes will be used (orange in light 3ds Max color scheme and blue in dark color scheme).
Update Colors Now (Restart GUI)... - pressing this button will close the Krakatoa GUI and open it again. If the Custom Checkbutton Colors were enabled, the changes will become visible.
Rollout Drop-Down List - the drop-down list shows all rollouts that can be customized. To change a rollout's color, select its name from the list and use the Checkbutton Highlight Color swatch to specify the custom color.
Checkbutton Highlight Color - this color swatch shows the custom color for the rollout selected in the drop-down list and can be used to customize the color.
Save Checkbutton Colors As Preset... - this button can be used to save a file containing the current custom color settings to disk as a .KCP (Krakatoa Colors Preset) file. The current color settings will be stored in the KrakatoaPreferences.ini file, but the KCP files could be used to create libraries of color schemes, share with other users, transfer the colors to other computers and so on.
Load Checkbutton Colors From Preset... - this button can be used to load an existing .KCP file from disk.