Glittering Shaders
Xenomorphine
Posts: 2,421
Has anyone tried these out on hard surfaces, like metal?
http://www.daz3d.com/march-madness/glittering-shaders
They're clearly aimed at fashion themes, but I'm wondering if they can't accidentally make a metallic or bone surface look as if it's covered in a thin layer of fluid or frost/ice particles, like slime-covered creatures. The belt prop makes me think they could, but the preview image of the black colour makes it seem as though that one is designed for fabric.
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Here's the basic shader applied to a metal scale.
Thank you! It really does seem to have that ice crystal effect... Seriously considering a purchase for that and creature-related reasons now.
Love it when shaders have unintended effective uses. :)
After purchasing this and playing around with the settings, have discovered it's excellent for those of us needing an oil-based wetness look for our creature characters! At least, the stand-alone ones, but I'd imagine the process is much the same with others (you'd presumably have to do it to each individual piece of clothing if they're 'worn' sections).
Here's how it's done:
After you apply the shader to a character, it'll look like a strange, smooth plastic-like surface with the expected glitter upon it. After experimenting with various settings in the surfaces tab, I discovered that, if you set the two 'diffuse' options to the correct texture the model had before, then set the diffuse colour to white... You now get the character looking just as it had before, but with what looks like oil or melting ice, which captures the light and glints brightly.
Probably not the purpose the designer had in mind, but it works really well to creating the illusion of genuinely organic-looking renders! :)
Any chance of some comparison renders, Xeno? I'm intrigued!
I already wanted these shaders - now even more so. Thanks for coming up with this use, I'm looking forward to trying it out. :)
I need to reinstall Photoshop Elements on this terminal, but I'll upload a couple of non-resized pictures to Photobucket and link them on here.
Experimented with Genesis 2, but... Oy! So many different textures to relink to in the diffuse section! I'm sure it would work (the middle-stage render was the same plastic-y look), just the same, but it'd be a long, drawn out process to relink all the individual neck/torso/eye/whatever textures. I'm still aiming to try that this evening, however.
Definitely worked with a stand-alone creature, though.
Before:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xenomorphine/CGI/AlienGlitterShader-Before_zpse8a1975f.png
After:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xenomorphine/CGI/AlienGlitterShader-After_zpsa9b67663.png
Shows some interesting results, regarding how the shader interacts with the textures. One the head and torso, the texturing comes through much better than on, say, the feet, for some reason. Think it depends on how much detail is on the actual model.
For the head, torso and arms, however, it's a very impressive result.
Additionally, this was the black version of the shader. It comes in a whole spectrum of colours. I tried the white version, just to see what woudl happen and, after changing the 'diffuse' textures, got a weird-but-interesting effect of the Alien looking like it was encased in ice!
Looks like this set could have a whole host of unintended visual effects... Just be prepared to keep relinking all the textures in the 'diffuse' section of the surface tab and remember this will involve a lot more time for models, like Genesis 2, which have lots of different ones for each section of the individual model.
Awwww man I used to have that figure, lost it ages ago. Do you know if it's still available?
But yeah, the after is a huge improvement! I think I would darken the diffuse color on the tail though, it looks a little too sparkly. Did it slow down the render speeds too much? Sorry for all the questions!
Actually, it's a recently available figure. I'll tell you where it can be purchased if you send a private message. :) You may be thinking of the free, less-detailed version by Swidhelm, which is on Share CG. It's meant to be getting an updated version (was shown some preview images and it looked amazing).
It didn't seem to slow down the render speed any more than any other shader, but I recently got a fairly powerful computer which renders much faster than my previous one did. :) I might nto be the best person to ask. It does reflect individual lights, though - might depend on how many of those you've got shining on the scene. I only had a single indirect light in that, for simplicity.
For something like Genesis 1 or 2 (especially Genesis 2 HD), all the actual surface detail is in the model, itself, which should make the effect much more impressive. Haven't tested it yet.
Unless you're talking multi-thousand dollar setups, I doubt our rigs are too far in terms of power!
Well, stuff like 16 GB of RAM massively helped my renders, but either way, I can't say I noticed much of a before/after difference.
Basically, your mileage may vary. :)
Greetings,
I got this shader explicitly to use on a sword, for that magical-sword-kinda-effect.
For a person, I imagine that at too high levels it will give the 'sparkling vampire' effect... :coolgrin:
-- Morgan
Note to self: If ever applied to a person, DON'T use high level...or bash brain out with gold brick, wrapped with slice of lemon...
I found that if I select a textured surface and apply only the Glittering Shader utility "Glitter On", it keeps all my texture maps and the appearance is as thought glitter were applied to them. I think it may be a quicker way to get the same result you got by putting the maps back after applying the shader.
Good work! Hadn't realised there were utility settings... It's certainly solved a lot of problems with the Alien model.
Applying it to Victoria 6, however, had a curious effect. Changing the glitter 'size' to medium or large, helps with making it look more like fluid on the Alien, but on V6, it mostly still just looks like glitter. Putting shine on and 'two tone' to off, seems to have more of a desirable effect.
What's strange, however, is that on both the Alien and V6, even using this method, seems to make the feet and lower legs strangely white and grey... The Alien model only has a single UV map/texture and the V6 has lots, however. So, I'm unsure what this means the glitter shader might be doing. I've kept it to a single indirect light, which means the light shouldn't be weaker in that area.
This is all fascinating stuff...
EDIT: Actually, I just added a non-shaded V6 alongside the shaded one. Even with only 'glitter on' selected, I hadn't realised how it's made her entire skin much paler in general! I think the 'greyed out' look to the feet might have been more due to the light's angle, now I'm comparing the two of them... It does seem to be giving V6 a sheen of highlights, it's jsut that, as it's made her skin generally more pale, it looked as if the lower legs were especially so.
Now to figure out how to remove the weirdly pale effect...
Edited to add: I had an instance of the "gray bottom" that you described. I eliminated it by setting Diffuse 1 Percent to 0.0%. I was using it on hair, not a person, but give it a try.
After some further playing around, it looks like manually shifting 'Diffuse Percent' 1 and 2 down to 0% almost entirely eliminates the strange white/grey effect on the feet and legs of both the Alien and V6. V6 is still suffering from an overall paler complexion, but not nearly as much as before.
Selecting glitter size as medium definitely gave the shader more of a watery than glittery look, for those also trying to achieve that effect.
Example:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xenomorphine/CGI/AlienGlitterShader-Improved_zpsac65c913.jpg
Applied to both V6 HD and the earlier Alien model. Single indirect light used.
Did you try Shine OFF utility to see if that reduces the paler complexion?
Yes and, in a pure V6/V6 render, the non-shaded one seems to have shadows wrap around her in the usual realistic fashion, but the shaded version has virtually no shadows upon her... I'm wondering if, even with shine off, it might be actively enhancing and reflecting all the light which falls on it. The paler complexion might just be an illusion, in that respect.
It's the Velvet Strength, it's too high by default, drop it to about a .2, that should clear it up.
Also, after all your hard work, here's a shader preset that you can apply over textures, it'll drop the two tone (diffuse percent to 0), and lower the shine and velvet strength so they don't interfere with the texture:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/75512/view/21/DAZ-Studio/Over-the-top-for-Glittering-Shaders-for-DAZ
Thanks,
palin11
Solved! Thank you so much!