List of Shader Mixer Tutorials and Recipes WIP please be patient as I update the list...thanks!

Bejaymac

ReDave said:

Feel free to use the networks I posted on the forums.
I can't post or even check the forums much these days, as there seems to be a problem with Opera under Win8, in that I get the Cloudflare screen each time I try to open a topic, and I usually don't feel like opening a virtual machine just to browse the DAZ3D forums.

I get that all the time, DAZ have gone all big brother on us and you now need to be logged in to view the threads, you can access the forums without being logged in just not the threads. To add insult to injury you might be logged in when you access the forums, only for the bloody site to log you out before you get near the threads.

Rareth

more work on tree bark, I went in a different direction this time, (went for a more oak bark look as we have a bunch of scrub oak outside the window here).

Rareth

This is how I achieved it, fairly simple brick network.

Kerya

Thanks Rareth!

Rareth

Kerya said:

Thanks Rareth!

you're welcome, I should point out the shader works very well for tree trunks, I am still trying to see if I can get the procedural to "follow" the branch orientations, because right now it's just stretched along the y axis.

sample render in a scene.

Eustace Scrubb

Map Normals to UVs instead of to the camera.

Pendraia

first sorry , I missed a lot of posts as I stopped getting notifications again...

Thanks for the headsup on the name Szark...

Rareth said:

This is how I achieved it, fairly simple brick network.

thanks for the network....I'll update the list to include it.

Thanks Eustace for the info on how to improve it.

Pendraia

Eustace Scrubb said:

Map Normals to UVs instead of to the camera.

Hi Eustace, a couple of questions about your map. First, is the initial displacement block is the standard root brick for Displacement, I noticed that you plugged the binary brick straight into it instead of using the standard displacement setup was that so you got normals instead of Displacement?
My second question is I'm wondering why you plugged the binary into the ambient?

Also I was wondering if this would work with the marble brick or if it only works with a uv?

Eustace Scrubb

 

Pendraia said:

Eustace Scrubb said:

Map Normals to UVs instead of to the camera.

 

Hi Eustace, a couple of questions about your map. First, is the initial displacement block is the standard root brick for Displacement, I noticed that you plugged the binary brick straight into it instead of using the standard displacement setup was that so you got normals instead of Displacement?
My second question is I'm wondering why you plugged the binary into the ambient?

 

Also I was wondering if this would work with the marble brick or if it only works with a uv?

 

The key is multiplying the NormalMap brick and the NTransform brick (Current to Object) with a Binary Function. I only stuck it into Ambient to color the sphere something other than grey. On the Displacement root, N is Normal and it's where either Normal or Bump plug in at. Displacement goes in at P: I never tried P.

The NormalMap brick aligns camera-forward: the default (Current) map alignment is changed to UV (Object) in the binary operation. I'm not sure what effect you're seeking to produce with a Marble brick.

Pendraia

Eustace Scrubb said:

Pendraia said:

Eustace Scrubb said:

Map Normals to UVs instead of to the camera.

Hi Eustace, a couple of questions about your map. First, is the initial displacement block is the standard root brick for Displacement, I noticed that you plugged the binary brick straight into it instead of using the standard displacement setup was that so you got normals instead of Displacement?
My second question is I'm wondering why you plugged the binary into the ambient?

Also I was wondering if this would work with the marble brick or if it only works with a uv?

The key is multiplying the NormalMap brick and the NTransform brick (Current to Object) with a Binary Function. I only stuck it into Ambient to color the sphere something other than grey. On the Displacement root, N is Normal and it's where either Normal or Bump plug in at. Displacement goes in at P: I never tried P.

The NormalMap brick aligns camera-forward: the default (Current) map alignment is changed to UV (Object) in the binary operation. I'm not sure what effect you're seeking to produce with a Marble brick.

Okay...bear with me as I'm full of cold, so I hope this makes sense.

I normally using N and P to get displacement...I hadn't realised that normal get plugged into the same node as the bumps. Thanks for the info.

From what you are saying it sounds like you need to have at least an image brick plugged in for the Normalmap brick to align with. The original poster was using the marble brick to get the bark texture which is why I asked about it. He used a mix brick with the marble as an alpha with the two layers using different colours. If the image brick is necessary it's probably possible to add another mix brick in to combine his original mix set up and the image brick. I'll have a play when my head is clear. Too many things to do and my brain is too fuzzy to do them at the moment.

Thanks for the additional info...

Eustace Scrubb

Here's the basic displacement network: all you have to do to set this up is to add Bump and Displacement maps to the standard shader.

Pendraia

Eustace Scrubb said:

Here's the basic displacement network: all you have to do to set this up is to add Bump and Displacement maps to the standard shader.

Hi Eustace, thanks for network that allows different image for bump and displacement. I've only ever used one but can see where it would be useful. I take it that the end bricks are both image bricks that you've renamed?

Eustace Scrubb

Pendraia said:

Eustace Scrubb said:

Here's the basic displacement network: all you have to do to set this up is to add Bump and Displacement maps to the standard shader.

Hi Eustace, thanks for network that allows different image for bump and displacement. I've only ever used one but can see where it would be useful. I take it that the end bricks are both image bricks that you've renamed?

Honestly, I stole it intact from Zigraphix' ShaderMixer Tutorial files, and I believe I've set it up just so, automatically, by plugging maps in at Displacement and Bump. I renamed the bricks, but you're right: it's just another Image Map brick on each one.

This is what happens when I take a plane in the Default Shader and insert Displacement and Bump Maps, then import the surface shader to SM from the scene:

Pendraia

Eustace Scrubb said:

Pendraia said:

Eustace Scrubb said:

Here's the basic displacement network: all you have to do to set this up is to add Bump and Displacement maps to the standard shader.

Hi Eustace, thanks for network that allows different image for bump and displacement. I've only ever used one but can see where it would be useful. I take it that the end bricks are both image bricks that you've renamed?

Honestly, I stole it intact from Zigraphix' ShaderMixer Tutorial files, and I believe I've set it up just so, automatically, by plugging maps in at Displacement and Bump. I renamed the bricks, but you're right: it's just another Image Map brick on each one.

This is what happens when I take a plane in the Default Shader and insert Displacement and Bump Maps, then import the surface shader to SM from the scene:god...I hate getting old! If its the tutorial with the rotate brick I helped test it but don't recall it using normals or two maps.

Eustace Scrubb

That's the one--but as you can see from the second post, it's the same wiring that D|S sets up automatically. All I did was to disentangle the node tree.

Eustace Scrubb

A working Fresnel setup for gemstones, et cetera. Note the fire of the central gems (the outer ring only uses Reflect/Refract and Trace).

Feel free to test, implement, and improve on it as much as you'd like.

Pendraia

Eustace Scrubb said:

A working Fresnel setup for gemstones, et cetera. Note the fire of the central gems (the outer ring only uses Reflect/Refract and Trace).

Feel free to test, implement, and improve on it as much as you'd like.

wow...that looks amazing. I'm on holiday at the end of this coming week so should be able to update the list then.

Eustace Scrubb

A little more putzing and fine-tuning: here we go. This renders even better, but the diamond ring took over half an hour.

Pendraia

Eustace Scrubb said:

A little more putzing and fine-tuning: here we go. This renders even better, but the diamond ring took over half an hour.

Beautiful...sorry I didn't see this sooner. I stopped getting notifications.

Eustace Scrubb

If it works and continues to work, well and good, but I think I'll take another tack next time with the Fresnel node. Further experiments seem to indicate that the Reflection and Refraction node includes Fresnel functioning and so doubling down on it can damage your refraction or lose it entirely (the curves of a glass, for instance, became entirely invisible, as though nonexistant, with objects behind the vessel sitting plain and unrefracted).

Kerya

I just found an explanation how to use shader mixer to get the old pwCatch
"Make a surface mimic the backdrop image to bring your photos and 3D together"
functionality:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/30173/

Pendraia

Kerya said:

I just found an explanation how to use shader mixer to get the old pwCatch
"Make a surface mimic the backdrop image to bring your photos and 3D together"
functionality:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/30173/

Thanks for the link Kerya...I'll update the first post as soon as I get chance.

sriesch

When next I get a chance I'm going to have to try recreating some of these. I have almost nothing for materials at the moment, and need to build up my library.

Does anybody know if there are any products in the store, other than the shader tutorial and those that ship with DS, that are in Shader Mixer format that we can therefore browse through and use as starting points for experiments?

Eustace Scrubb

It depends on what you want to do: there are a lot of SM snippets on ShareCG under Materials, and you can pick apart my Mephistopolis Noir shaders, too, if you'd like--with proper attribution, that is.

stump3point1

Hello Eustace,

Could you do me a favor, when you upload your recipe's could you possibly load a higher resolution(full size). I realize screen captures are set to low res by default but if you could maybe tweak it a little higher I would be able to get the text to show up better.You can load Upload as big as necessary the browser will automatically resize and allow user's to click to see the full image.Your labels work alright but the input and output's are hard to focus on, it would be nice to eliminate the guess work.

Of course they could be fine for everyone else but old f@$ts like myself might be struggling(even with a magnifier popup).

Great work on those shaders(by the way) and thank's for the contribution.

Eustace Scrubb

stumpc said:

Hello Eustace,

Could you do me a favor, when you upload your recipe's could you possibly load a higher resolution(full size). I realize screen captures are set to low res by default but if you could maybe tweak it a little higher I would be able to get the text to show up better.You can load Upload as big as necessary the browser will automatically resize and allow user's to click to see the full image.Your labels work alright but the input and output's are hard to focus on, it would be nice to eliminate the guess work.

Of course they could be fine for everyone else but old f@$ts like myself might be struggling(even with a magnifier popup).

Great work on those shaders (by the way) and thanks for the contribution.

You're welcome. And thanks!

Which ones in particular do you need? (I'll tell you straight: the last-posted Fresnel recipe is faulty so I wouldn't even bother with it.) I've got color-channel splitters for HSI or CMYK, I've got a layout to implement PNG alpha channels, one to use Normal maps...

stump3point1

Eustace Scrubb said:

Which ones in particular do you need?

The one for the Diamond would be nice, I notice with the Zoom in the shader mixer as you zoom out it fuzzes up the text in the application, when its not zoomed it is as clear as a bell.

Old eyeballs I guess.:red:

Eustace Scrubb

This is the same node tree as that last one, without the insertion of Binary Equation nodes.

And a diamond rendered therewith. This is an incomplete node tree; user-adjusible settings (Surfaces Tab dials) are not shown.

MysticWings

I want to thank you for this tutorials. I'm a starter and after do the basic tutorials was a little lost on how to evolute from there.
It's amazing how much help this community give to newbies :)
I'm really loving 3d art and all this facilities we find here to learn really help on that.
I admit, I don't have to much patience to looking over the all internet and lost lots of time with not so good tutorials. You really save me lots of time.

I also think a very good way to organize is for beginner - intermedium - expert.
You can also do a double organization. first organize by themes and inside the theme organize by difficulty as above.
But that's me (I'm a little paranoid with organization :P). The way you have now is already great ;)

Eustace Scrubb

For those who, like myself, wish to make shaders that work in both DS3 and DS4, it seems the DS4 IF-brick causes problems in DS3. But an IF brick can be simulated, or even surpassed, by stacking MIX-bricks. For a two-option IF, use one MIX brick and plug in the values as follows:

If    == Alpha
Value == Layer
Else  == Base

For each added variable, stack another MIX on board, plugging in the previous output into the next base, as follows:

If          == Alpha (MIX 1)
Value       == Layer (MIX 1)
...
Else If {n} == Alpha (MIX n+1)
*Plug Mixed Result n into Base (MIX n+1)*
Value {n+1} == Layer (MIX n+1)
...
Else        == Base (MIX 1)

I'll follow up sometime with the recipe for a looping multi-value blend switch.