Denki Gaga's Super Shaders - Modifying For Iray?

Xenomorphine

These are on sale, today:

http://www.daz3d.com/super-shaders-super-bundle

While I'm still focusing on 3Delight renderings, I've recently got Dreamlight's video tutorial on Iray and they usually do some good user-friendly/layman's terms to clarify what's going on. As I understand it, shaders can be a bit hit-or-miss if they're not designed for Iray use, but these sets state that they can be used in Iray with some slight modifications.

Anybody have these products and can explain what would be needed to use them in Iray renderings? There are some very useful-looking effects in there!

scorpio

It doesn' actually say but I would take a guess that they are presets for the 3Delight default shader and you could therfore apply the Iray Uber base and then tweak what settings you need to, especially the displacement and Ambient some of them use.

Fisty

From what I can tell he uses daz default shader for all his presets, if that's the case they should convert pretty well.. it's when you get into the complicated masking and layering of the other shaders that Iray gets confused.

Digital Lite Design

I bought them. From the looks, they can be used and tweaked to work. When you get something set the way you like, just save out the new preset for next time.  :)

Xenomorphine

I... Have no idea how to go about saving presets. :)

Is it as Scorpio suggests? Merely applying the Iray shader base? I'd have thought that doing so would cancel out a previously-applied shader.

Digital Lite Design

You can hold the Control (Ctrl) key when applying and select to Ignore when it asks if you want to replace textures.  (It should do it automatically, but I like making sure)  LOL

To save it, once it is applied to say, a sphere, and you have got it looking the way you want it to, then go to "File > Save As > Shader Preset"

This will allow you to name it and then select what surface aspects you want to save.  Choose a location you will remember (like a subfolder in the Original location) and you should be set.  :) 

Xenomorphine

Interesting, thank you! If that's how to get these to function under Iray, I'll definitely have to obtain them. They look just incredibly useful.

Xenomorphine

Tried the technique in Iray and no dice... Ah, well.

At least they they're great for any 3Delight renders.

Fisty

What is happening that it's not working?

Xenomorphine

Well, after a lot of testing in Iray using a spherical primitive, some work, but others don't. Many of those which transform it into metals with patterned spaces in between it, are successful. But others do nothing but keep a smooth surface.

MelanieL

I'm guessing the ones that don't work are those relying on Displacement? This works entirely differently in Iray from 3Delight.

You need to apply the shader presets of your choice (DenkiGaka's steps 1-4), then set the Shader on the surface to Iray Uber Base. This loads with the "SubD Displacement Level" parameter set to zero - this is a parameter used by the Iray renderer to divide up the surface to apply displacements during the render process (now, I don't entirely understand how and why, but there are threads in the Commons that explain it). On a primitive cube I found that a value of about 3 is enough, but the sphere seems to need a higher setting - at least 6 before you get a real result. On the downside, this slows down the render and increases the amount of memory required (so may push you over from GPU to CPU rendering).

If you don't really need displacement but are happy to use bump, then there's no memory hit, but be aware that it doesn't look as pronounced either in Iray so you'll need to increase the "Base Bump" parameter by doubling or more - I found 4.00 to be about the minimum to get a decent effect on a sphere.

ETA: Here are a couple of forum threads about displacment: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/57100/iray-displacement or: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/60129/does-iray-have-issues-with-displacement-maps

Xenomorphine

That technique seems to do the trick! Thank you! Very curious...

Shall have to see if it helps with other shader products, too.