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Shaders are COOL!!!

bringhobringho Posts: 239
edited December 1969 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Particularly when one can find some sort of documentation on the subject...

I've researched the online doc's and came up empty... duh... Surprised? :roll:

So once again I turn to the collective knowledge in the forum:

I want to create a very simple - not exactly but sort of a - ghosting shader.

This probably means that I need to calculate the angle between
the surface normal and the camera where an angle of:

180 degrees is head on = minimal opacity to be translated to zero or a few percent opacity control..

90 degrees or less means that the surface is invisible to the camera = 100% opacity control.

This should NOT be difficult, It was a peace of cake to set up in Maya ages ago...

My studies so far has lead me to the shader builder rather than to the shader mixer but now I'm stuck.

Since this render engine is RenderMan compatible the next step for me is to dig into the ols
"Advanced RenderMan" to try decipher which "brick" does what and how to use them.

As usual:

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Direction to valid documentation will do ;-)

Comments

  • TapiocaTundraTapiocaTundra Posts: 268
    edited December 1969

    Hello bringho
    I have been having a bash at just that kind of shader as my initiation so to speak.
    I started here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RenderMan_Shading_Language
    And found a link there to this.RSL-Edge Effects
    a nice little run through.
    On my journey I got this aquisis 1.81 a renderman renderer that was useful for the lesson. It compiles .rl shaders for use by itself and renders very easily so it helps.
    So If you want to do the lesson...
    Using a note pad.
    You will have to grab the .sl shader code under listing 1. and put it in the surface shader folder of Aqsis call it "rim.sl" as that is what the following .rib file will look for to render.
    Grab the code under listing 2. and save the text as "rim_tester.rib" that will be your sphere test file.
    Open up Aqsis and compile your rim.sl shader
    Render your rim-tester.rib file
    Now you can repeat the shader code grab and compile to the end of the lesson.


    Now in Daz Studio 4
    I compiled the .sl in the RSL editor first but I do not know what to do with it after that so I left that idea alone for now but would be happy for any advice :) so what I did was.
    Was to grab the final edge effect code listed on the page and saved the text as a .sl file.
    Then in shader builder started a new shader, and discovered by right clicking anywhere in the work area I could bring in the .sl as a new macro.
    Connected the orange outputs, but needed a control for the "rim_width", so by adding default parameters chose one that looked suitable and changed its name,saved the shader.
    After a little tweaking with the rim width control in surface properties in the main Daz window got these results.
    It is messy I feel.
    I am new, (possibly rubbish) at this but learning :)

    shader_builder.jpg
    785 x 532 - 130K
    xray_shader.jpg
    800 x 493 - 227K
  • bringhobringho Posts: 239
    edited December 1969

    That was spot on m8!

    I got the look I was aiming for and learned a lot by your example.

    I can't thank you enough!!!

  • TapiocaTundraTapiocaTundra Posts: 268
    edited December 1969

    Glad to help, I would love to see what you did with the shader, a lot neater than the way I hashed it together no doubt.
    I need all the help I can get too :)

  • bringhobringho Posts: 239
    edited December 1969

    TapiocaTundra said:
    Glad to help, I would love to see what you did with the shader, a lot neater than the way I hashed it together no doubt.
    I need all the help I can get too :)

    At the moment it's just testing...

    This shader is needed to get the thing I'm working on to look the way I want.

    Right now I'm working on the mesh and I'll be able to post wip as I got something to render...

    Last week I finally became a merchant when my first product was released at Renderosity,
    but it's a bit exTreeme so I thought I go for something more mainstream for my next product. %-P

    Thanks again M8, I'll keep you posted ;-)

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