Isimple Shader System Tutorial Videos [Commercial]
Half Life
Posts: 479
I made 4 free tutorial videos (about a half hour total) to explain all of the settings in the Isimple Shader System and how best to use them in DAZ Studio:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDDp5-FGS4UIYdri0TlJr-xGy0Enm1kRK
I think I covered everything, but if anybody still has any questions about the product feel free to ask.
Post edited by Half Life on
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Comments
Like I said on the video, this product looks fantastic and you explained everything very well! The second I'm able to play around with my cash again, this will be among the very first things I purchase! :D
Thank-you -- I am glad to have the feedback :)
What makes this a merchant resource, and what are the usage restrictions of using it as one? I'm guessing any presets saved with these will require the user to own this as well (similar to the AoA shader line).
No, use as desired.... the end-user doesn't need to own it to use any products you create with it.
Excellent work. This type of thing was sorely needed especially for people who feel uncomfortable trying to translate 3DL shaders to Iray.
It looks like there is no control for specular strength in any of these. Can you elaborate on why you consider it unnecessary?
Sure. As I said in the videos I designed these to work for the new generation of PBR texturing tools -- with the most important of those being the tools by Allegorithmic (Substance Designer and Substance Painter). In these texturing workflows the Metallic/Roughness shader is almost universally favored. IMO using the Specular/Glossiness approach, while perhaps somewhat easier for legacy render engine users to understand at first, in the long run is a handicap towards maximizing efficiency and simplicity in a PBR material creation workflow.
Since my goal was maximum efficiency, I was not just looking at simplicity in DAZ Studio, but also included my understanding of the preferred texturing workflow with these tools. For myself, the ultimate goal of Isimple was to replicate the basic material channel defaults and default shader combination used in Substance Painter, so that users of both programs would find the workflow between programs as seamless and well integrated as possible.
Basically, I just wanted to make it as easy as possible for users who were struggling getting a handle on the PBR ecosystem to get to a place where they were able to be productive.
That said, specular strength (as such) does not exist in a PBR Metallic/Roughness shader. To some degree you could say it does exist in the new dual lobe settings -- but the problem there is it kind of does and kind of doesn't. It gets pretty complex under the hood with the Iray but the basic idea is Nd (Index of Refraction) controls all reflectivity (as well as refractive properties) in the real world -- this is something you can control directly for some aspects of the Iray Uber Base shaders (refractive surfaces being a notable example), but other aspects utilize more abstract (meaning less precise) concepts of a reflectivity scale which are problematic.
Without getting into to much boring detail (I've rambled enough) I guess the best ways I could put it is: Isimple is designed for when you just want to get a high-quality result with the minimum fuss. However I can't imagine anybody who is a true perfectionist about how their products render being satisfied with anything less than the full capabilities of the Iray Uber Shader (for my personal work I have made specialized base shaders that are actually more complex in some of the specific results they can get)... there are just too many possible directions for minor tweaks that a perfectionist might want go in to create a truly simplified shader that would work (for example anisotropy is a major favorite of mine which is no where to be found in Isimple). So instead of flexibility I was going for maximum simplicity. But just me trying to explain a simple thing like this gets into technical parameters so quickly that I have a hard time explaining without alot of physics background... so these may sound like half answers. But I think that my rambling in and of itself shows pretty clearly how this can really get confusing for people who are not deeply into the topic --which is something I was trying to avoid with this product because Isimple was made for those people who find other parts of creating 3D more rewarding than fiddling with shader settings all day.
Awesome answer. I never use Metallic/Rougness so I will get these to play around with what you think are the minimum controls and see if I can understand it.
Is IOR supposed to be exposed if it is driving reflectance or is the difference so minimal at real world values it doesn't matter?
It is exposed in the "Isimple + volume" version, which handles both refractive (water, glass, etc.) and SSS (wax, blood, milk, etc.) -- and any portions of the material which are using the refraction weight will also drive the reflectance (either partially or fully)via the IOR setting.
In the case of metallic portions and for non-refractive areas (and all others versions of Isimple) the default reflectance is baked-in -- mostly because for non-transmissive objects the IOR tends to be fairly constant (metals being an exception, but then you get into K values for the IOR which Iray doesn't even support AFAIK). The other part of this calculation for the needfulness of reflectivity modification is roughness. IOR is only relevant in low roughness materials -- as the roughness climbs the difference between the reflectivity of various surfaces goes away.
That's useful, thanks.
I have a question. I love playing with the Iray shader stuff so I'm constantly in there messing around and creating my own shaders. I do know what each of the parameters does. What happens to all of those other parameters that are usually visible with the Iray Uber shader? I assume they are still there and can be accessed if needed with your shader system? Did you just hide them to make it easier for people who are using your Isimple product? Or are they no longer accessible?
Oh, I should mention I did purchase the product and it's installing now so I haven't actually gotten a chance to actually use it. I did watch the videos which were great. I might not actually need Isimple since I like to fiddle with settings so much, but I just couldn't resist taking a look so I could play around with it.
I removed all functionality that was not specifically related to the effect that particular shader was meant to achieve. Definitely, this isn't meant for people who like to fiddle with shader settings (like you or me) -- rather it is meant for people who dislike fiddling with shader settings and just want an easy solution to get high-quality results.
Under the hood it is just the Iray Uber Shader, stripped down to the bare essentials (of course with an eye towards maximizing integration with texturing tools like Substance Painter). I didn't get real creative with this one, instead all my time and energy was in figuring out what was actually essential vs what was just optional... well that, and looking for opportunities to take several parameters and collapse them into one for the sake of efficiency/ease of use.
I have other shaders I use personally that fill gaps in what the Iray Uber Shader can do, which I may or may not ever release commercially. I decided to release these shaders after watching people who were otherwise good PA's being held back in their productivity because the Iray Uber Shader was too complex/confusing. I wanted to help those people have the option to create and compete on equal footing in regards to utilizing Iray as part of their products. I tried to keep the parameters as close the Iray Uber Shader parameters as much as possible, so that once they got comfortable with producing products with Isimple, they might find the Iray Uber Shader less intimidating.
Then of course there is the other major group of potential users: those who are comfortable with the Iray Uber Shader but find they only ever use the basic functionality of plugging in their textures from Substance Painter -- for these people the roadblock to better productivity is simply wasted clicks and time spent scrolling past parameters they never use. Looking from that angle I estimated that a user could potentially save up to 25% of setup time for a new surface (over using the Iray Uber Shader) just in wasted clicks and scrolling. That time saved in a part of production that is not particularly meaningful to them could mean more time spent elsewhere in the pipeline on parts of the process that is more meaningful to them (modeling, texturing, rigging, etc).
I'm really confused as to what exactly this product is.
Is it a new Shader?, or shader presset for the Uber Iray shader?
or is it just a script whichlimits the channels availble in the Uber Iray shader availble with DS? if it is this if a vendor uses it for their product will I as a customer find the channels limited or will I be able to undide the hidden ones.
Thanks.
It is a new shader (made via shader mixer) based on the Iray Uber Shader -- all of the non-essential elements have been stripped out. What you see is what you get, there is no unhiding. However, if you as a customer wanted to select the surface and apply the Iray Uber Shader, you will find the Isimple parameters will convert over to the Iray Uber Base (because they are very similar) and you should be able to tweak from that point to your hearts content.
To continue that line of thought -- it would be entirely possible for a PA to create the surface using Isimple, then at the end apply the Iray Uber Base and save out the Material Preset. To the end-user it would appear the material was created using the Iray Uber Base, however the PA gets the advantage of a greatly streamlined creation workflow. As far as I can see there are no negatives to using this approach to content creation.
Thank you for the explanation but I'm still a bit confused, sorry, if its a new shader how can it be built off Iray Uber shader I thought that made it a shader preset, and what is the point of a vendor using it and then using the Uber Iray shader after wards won't that loose any of the properties that your shader has.
Sorry I'm just ttrying to work out if this would be of any use to me and if it brings something new to the table.
Thanks
Shader mixer allows you to start with any shader as a starting point. Something made in shader mixer uses nodes to build the shader -- a shader preset is usually just saved setting for the Iray Uber Shader. My shader does not override your existing settings (for the most part), it adapts to them.
There are no special properties of my shader -- it's value is in the extreme simplicity of setup. The rendered results are identical to result that can be made with the Iray Uber Shader... so all a PA would lose by converting to the Iray Uber Base after the setup is done is the ability to edit the simplified version. However if there were concerns about the end-user wanting to make additional tweaks beyond what Isimple provides it may be worthwhile to do the conversion for them.
For the end-user of content this product has little value -- it's only purpose in to help people who are engaged in creating content.
Ahh got it.
Thank you
Okay, I get it. Thanks for the explanation. It might still be useful for me. I've been playing with the Substance Designer and Substance Painter free trials so it might be a quick way to use those textures where I don't really need to mess around so much. I'll definitely play around with it.
So, basically, when I want to play with all of the Iray settings, I just stick with the default Iray Uber Shader and, if I want to do something quick like plug in textures from other programs quickly, I can use Isimple. It never hurts to have more than one way of doing something.
Yep, that is exactly the intended use.
I just tried this out with some Filter Forge stuff and it does work really well for quickly plugging in base maps, then switching to Uber for any additional tweaks.
I can assume this includes freebies?
Absolutely. I am not concerned about what type of content you create using this tool... I made it to be used
Cheers. I figured that was the case but thought best to confirm
I grabbed it straight away looks so easy !
Half Life, do you think your product might make it easier to convert older hair packages for Iray?
Last night I was working with Wyatt hair, trying to make a red looked good in Iray. This particular hair is in a style I quite like, but if I just convert it to use the Iray Uber Shader, the texture looks very fake and cartoony, and in sunlight it makes terrible fireflies. As I was futzing around with the settings last night, trying to find ones that looked more natural, I wished for fewer options to click around with, just a few that would truly be useful instead of a long list of parameters that might or might not be helping.
Would +translucency be the one to use for hair? If it's not ideal, will you be updating the package with a shader more suitable for converting hair?
Thanks!
Sorry I was out of touch, the hurricane knocked out my electric (and internet).
+translucency would be the closest thing because hair needs to be based on thinSSS (being single-sided). That said, you would probably want to add some Anisotropy for hair and that is something none of the Isimple variations allows directly (you would have to convert to Iray Uber Shader). Hair is one of those things that would really benefit from a shader made specifically for that... but I am not sure if the demand would warrant creating such a product.
OK. Thank you. Glad to have you back!
Glad to hear you survived the hurricane. I hope you don't have too much damage to deal with.
I cooked up a base skin (Iskin) and base hair (Ihair) shader using the conventions I established with Isimple (so if you watched the videos alot of the parameter information will transfer over). If you put these on a new surface they will come in with some good generic starting settings, however if you use them on a existing surface they will simplify the settings to only what is relevant and keep existing textures and settings where possible -- in this way these can be used as converters for 3Delight or older Iray materials.
Here is a dropbox link to the files, just unzip into your "My DAZ 3D Library" folder.
One tip for Iskin: in the Diffuse Overlay Weight slot you want to load a transparent PNG (for makeups, eyebrows, etc.) and afterwards edit the image settings to get the Grayscale From Alpha (this will get the transparency from the Alpha channel but keep the color from the RGB channels, which allows you to only load the texture once, instead of twice like you have to in the Iray Uber Base, which can save some time and clicks during setup).
If you haven't purchased Isimple yet, please consider doing so if you find these variations helpful. As always, you are encouraged to use these shaders for your commercial (or non-commercial) products and there are no license restriction for doing so -- also (as always) there is no need for the end-user to have these shaders installed as they are based on the Iray Uber Shader.
Cool! Thanks.