Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Did you see this thread about it?
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/23261/
Thank You
I'll take a look.
I have a feeling that this product has a learning curve, This is not a simple shader set!!!
It's going to be frustrating right out of the box... After some time tinkering with it, I should be able to get what I'm after.
I just hope I can remember everything I learned after that point, lol
Given the complexity of the settings, a YouTube video would be ideal.
I've spent about 6 hours this evening trying to get a good result from the Projection, but every time, no matter what I try I get a flat render with no depth.
If I just use the uber shaders version the results are pretty nice.
( given how nice your promos look, I realize it's a knowledge issue on my part, lol )
This image is the best result I could get ... (NON - PROJECTION )
Try sliding your Z scale down. I was just playing with it and because these are camera projection, it seems the further you get away the lower the Z Scale must be. Here's 2 text renders I just did. First render the Z scale for ground is 1 and Genesis 1, second test Z scale for ground is 10 and Genesis 6.
Bah, was trying to fix my previous post
I'll give that a try, perhaps I was not using a small enough setting.
Thanks
And because I have a bad problem with over explaining, here's 3 close-ups of the mound in first pictures, with the Z Scale setting left to right of 1, 5 and 10.
Well, that did not end up making a difference.
here are two renders
1. to show what I'm getting at render time.
2. to show how much depth detail should be there ( hardware render )
Here is the process I'm using:
1. load terrain model
2. select terrain model surface in surface tab
3. locate ShadesofLife in content shaders DT-projection folder
4. click on a material and it is applied to the terrain model
5 set a point light with raytraced shadows
6. render
if there is nothing wrong with the above then there is some setting on initial load of the shader that I need to adjust to get back all the depth that is being lost.
Ok, I understand what you mean now. What happens if you use a distant light in your above scene? Or if you use a 2 meter sphere with your lighting from that scene?
Because this is projecting from the camera it doesn't scale down with distance - you need separate items, or at least separate material zones (which you can create with the Polygon Group Editor) for each level going back. This is going to work better for relatively small objects, relative to their difference from the camera.
I get the same result regardless of which lighting I use... which has been all of them, lol
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
I understand, create the scene using a bunch of small to medium size terrain elements, placed both near and far to create the illusion of distance. I'll try that .
Thanks to all
Can I ask why you want projection mode working on that terrain? Generally things like terrain support tiled textures perfectly fine, and they are usually parallel to the camera's view which means projection mapping will likely do what it's doing for you. If you need projection mapping there try using a negative value on X Rotation, this will rotate the texture back from the camera (or skew the texture in the distance to fake depth). Since it's still all coming from the camera you'd still need lights and shadows to form the contour of the terrain, the last two renders you have posted seem to only have AO. With your terrain having such big features there doesn't appear to be enough shadow to form contrast.
Hope that helps
< smileys links seem to be broken..... so please imagine lots of smileys after each statement >
LOL, probably because I don't really understand the entire concept of your product like you do.
Your product description does not provide any info about how to use the product.
I just assumed it was a "shader" and that in every other instance of a shader type product, you can apply it to an object and get a consistent result.
Instructional documentation sold with the product, would have saved time for customers like me.
Having said that, it's also been interesting trying to figure out how to use this.
In the first image with the trees I used a skydome with ambient turned up on the texture, uber environment 2 light sphere, and a point light.
The last two images only have a single point light, set at an angle that has plenty of shadow to show depth. ( with my monitor calibration )
I get that it may appear extra dark on your screen.
I'll try your suggestion and see what I get from that.
Any idea when you might have some tutorials, or a product guide ready?
After all this time I've put in, I think it's still a great set of textures, even without the projection aspect.
I liked the way i was able to make that tree look so much more interesting with the extra control and multiple displacement dials.
Sincerely
-Brett
The result is consistent, it's mapping to your terrain the same way it would any other object so it's not doing anything weird there. Projected textures don't change based on distance from the camera, were you to use the shader on V4 it would behave the same as your terrain (laying V4 down on the terrain would show this better). You should be able to see this working in the first animation I posted. That's just how the idea of projection works across all programs.
It's very close to the same idea as these...
http://www.dailycognition.com/index.php/2008/08/29/unbelievable-anamorphic-illusion.html
2D designs and images applied from a certain viewpoint (in our case DS' camera view), regardless of the depth in the landscape. When viewed from the correct angle, designs in those images are made with larger and larger features the further away they are to compensate for depth and correctly display the 2D image. The way it works in DS is that you're always seeing the 2D image design regardless of view, so it's like the paint in those images would be moving around as you did.
I understand what your explaining here, thank you.
I'm glad that helped, and I'm sorry for confusion! I have a lot to work with in the Q&A, I'd been a bit under the weather these last couple days but it shouldn't take too long to sort through.
I look forward to it.
Feel Better!
< Insert Smiley Here >
Here's a couple quick renders using the Projection shaders,
with the dial set to UV Mapping for both grass and rock mapped objects.
This is how I intended to use the set when I bought it.
I'm pretty happy with the results, the textures render nice and are very realistic and make the scene more interesting.
the grass looks like grass, lol
I used a skydome from dreamlandmodels 81 city block set, Uber Environment 2, with the skydome map added to diffuse and ambient on the surface for the UE2 sphere. the light was set to Occlusion with directional shadows. and I used gamma correction set to 2.40
I recalibrated my monitor today... hopefully they are not too dark, and are represented correctly here.
lot's of possibilities... I might even move the maps over to poser and see how they render there, with some manual set up.
I've had a project in mind that this might come in handy for, but I need to ask if this can be applied to only selected mat zones of a human figure, or if its all or nothing?
Good question! Still not purchased but reading along here!
Something like this?
Yep. Did that happen smoothly or did it take some tweaking?
Really easy, I only adjusted the z scale to reduce the details, and then increased the displacement strength a little.
took 30 seconds max, including render :)
Thanks! =D
Sorry for the wait, everyone. I have the shader Q&A documentation finished and DAZ should be rolling it into the ReadMe soon. In the meantime you can view it at the link below. Many thanks to Slosh for helping me troubleshoot and get the documentation together!
http://3dimensiondigital.com/locker/shadeslife/ShadesOfLife-ProjectionDoc.pdf
Happy to :)
Is there an updated link for the PDF? The original http://3dimensiondigital.com/locker/shadeslife/ShadesOfLife-ProjectionDoc.pdf link appears to have gone missing.
It's been re-uploaded, so you should be able to find it at that same link again.
Thanks!