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I hope you enjoy it, like I do! Post some images after you try it out.
I'm sure I will! I'm a shader fanatic and will buy them before anything else because of their versatility. I'm looking forward to seeing the new and varied uses this can be put to in the long run.
Oh, Look! It does dirt, too!
I have 6 geometry shells and 2 decals in this. It took a long time to render with all that. I still am not proficient with decals. I need to study that some more. The mud puddle is not very convincing on the HDRI background. I ended up hiding the puddle object and only rendering the puddle dirt shell.
The HDRI used for background and lighting is from No Emotion HDRs. It is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0
Mama's gonna be mad!
Edit: Added clean kid with no dirt.
...so how does it work on large expanses, like a street? I tried using the Griminzer but it tended to have a repetitive pattern on large surfaces.
I'm tempted to buy this to see how it works for wetmaps and such, but i don't have the budget at the moment :P
I'm not sure whether it would work for wetmaps or not, but V3Digitimes has other products specifically for that purpose. You could pick those up at 50% off at the same time you buy A Touch of Dirt, if you want to.
Well, I tried to do a quick test for you, but I think I picked a poor example. The model I chose already has "dirty" textures. Anyway, here are the images. See if you can tell whether it would satisfy you.
Edit: Hmmm. I think I made some mistakes. I can't explain why some walls are dark and why that one wall has a light colored window shaped spot. I kept accidently selecting the model instead of the geometry shell when applying the shaders. I bet I accidently applied the dirt shader to some surfaces of the model instead of the shell. All in all, this is an embarrassingly miserable example! Sorry.
It is late and I have to go to bed. Maybe I can try a better example tomorrow, if this is not adequate for you to judge.
Edit 2: Ah ha! I had an inspiration and figured out what was wrong. I didn't apply the shader to the wrong surface. For some reason I had to increase the mesh offset of the geometry shell from 0.001 to 0.002. I remembered V3Digitimes saying something about that being necessary some times, so I tried it. That fixes both the dark walls and the funny window splotch. Wierd! But now you've learned a troubleshooting tip.
With A Touch of Dirt and "bad" mesh offset of 0.001
With A Touch of Dirt and Modified Mesh Offset = 0.002
Without A Touch of Dirt:
Ho you're right this is often fastidious to change things again and again in the mixer... I prefer having top coat to ensure everything can have Fresnel on it.
Lol! Excellent! I should have joined a "soap pack" with the product, it would have been a funny joke!
Very nice images, what you show here is an excellent example of what this can do.. and of what children can do too (and do to often!!!)!!!
Have no regrets. This will not work to make wetmaps. Well I have never tested them this way, but this is basically not, at least, conceived to work this way...
Exact, I have the wet and tanned skins which can take a wet or (and) a tanned aspect but this is for Genesis 2. I also have the drips and drops which is an outfit of "drips and drops" for Genesis 2 female. These are shaders and outfits, not based on shell technology.
Oh I'm sorry I had not see Kyoto Kid question. A luck for me Barbult is more awake than I am. A very important information she mentioned here, which is in the paper and video documentation but deserves to be said again : on large structures, you will probably have to increase the shell offset, sometimes up to 0.1 for them to be visible. I never understood why. This comes from the shell technology but I don't see rational explainations. When you have a lot of shells, this can be done "all together", by selecting them all in the scene tab, then going to "paramters" tab, and here, select them all again (but this time in the parameters tab grrr), write "off" in the "enter text to filter by...", and change all the offsets at once.
And for the answer, yes you can avoid repetitive patterns on very large scales, and... there are a few tricks you can use for that.
- First the shaders have 2 tiles for their opacity which define the dirt location (2 noises, so 2 tiles). You can use these two tiles to have already "2 scales" of noise - dirt - patterns to decrease the feeling of "this is repetitive". And their mutual interaction can be chosen between a lot : multiply, add, screen, substract, etc, etc. What's important is to have a "macro tile" (below 1), and one "smaller tile" (above 1).
- But you can also add a second shell (with a slightly different offset), and you will benefit 4 scales (tiles) for the noises. Using the 2 tiles provided by one shell may already be enough for you (you'd have a similar result as Barbult had), but if you like to "kill" more the repetitive aspect, use the second shell with different tiles (or maybe with the same tiles and differenf offsets, but I have not tested this).
- Remember you can also play with the colors tiles (2 noises which can be mixed), to kill "even more" the repetitive aspect.
- And if you want you can add some overlays to "definitely" kill the repetitive aspect by locally adding dirt.
- Well finally you can also use opacity maps....
But I think for very large scales, using 1 shells with well chosen tiles, or 2 shells, or 1 shell with a a few overlays should be enough.
I tried this morning with a huge plane. The plane is basically grey and in the images, the sphere you see in the middle is a 1 meter diameter sphere (so that you can see the scale). I post here the results I had. I used the basic shader which loads when I create the dirty shell, plus another shader, for which I reduced the opacity. You have the images without, with each, and with both shells.
So with 2 shells :
With each of the shells :
Here is an example of the influence of the tiles. There is only one shell here.
I keep a first tile at 0.5 for the "macro" non repetitive aspect. I keep a second tile at 1 then 2 for the micro aspect. At 1, no repetition. At 2, they "repeat" twice, but since the first noise is not repetitive, it is fine (the central sphere is still 1 meter). If you want other details you can add local overlays with a dirt shader (opacity masks for overlays are included to ensure this is fine), or a second geometry shell with at least one other bigger tile.
In this example for macro dirt (or patterns for macro objects), I use a second tile of 6 which is basically very repetitive. But since I blend it with an opacity with a tile of 0.8, which is bellow the "tile of a repetitive noise", this does not give the impression of a repetition. I use noise colors with tiles of 0.8 and 0.7 to have macro effects only which will not repeat and reduce even more the impression of a repetition.
As the previous one, the sphere is one meter diameter, and the base is a grey plane.
Wow, thanks for all that detailed explanation and illustrations about the tiling.
Here I used the dirt shaders to blend some models and props into the HDRI background. I think it was very successful. My good pal Muck is chiseling his likeness in stone at the River Rocks. (This is not the green textured Muck I usually use, but one of the other textures closer to rock to start with.) I used rock colored dirt on Muck and the boulders and rust colored dirt on the hammer. The HDRI used for lighting and background is River Rocks from HDRI Haven.
Muck Makes His Mini-Me
With A Touch of Dirt
Before A Touch of Dirt
I'm with greymouser69 on this... I had no idea...
I admit this thing scares the living --- out of me, I have absolutely no clue how to use this. In fact I moved on in my search as soon as I hit "procedural" - uh, what?
But I need to learn this, since this is exactly the sort of solution I have been needing for many of my renders.
I was just thinking the same thing
I just started messing with the hyperion bar (which doesn't have any DS textures so I was attempting to use some free Iray shaders (which I think work similar if not the same as these) but I don't think I used them right.
It can be as easy or as hard as you want to make it, because V3Digitimes provided many full presets for you to use. You don't even have to mess with the sliders if you don't want to. Just apply the geometry shell with the "V3DPD Apply Dirty Shell" script. Then apply one of the full presets - or you don't even have to do that, if you like what you see in the Iray render/preview, because the shell loads with a default dirt setting. If your system is capable of displaying the Iray preview in the Viewport or Aux Viewport, it is easy to switch between various presets and see quickly what they do, without even having to do a real test render or spot render. For me, though, the real fun comes in pushing a product to see what I can get out of it, so I enjoy playing with the sliders to see what happens.
@barbult - thanks, normally I don't check back this soon. Glad to hear I might be able to get some useful results with a couple of mouse clicks, while I learn enough to "turn a pigeon into a swan" so to speak.
a bit more confident now.
Remember that Daz has a 30 day return policy, so there is really no risk in trying it. V3Digitimes wrote a PDF instruction manual and made several tutorial videos on it, too. She is also good about answering questions in the forum, too, as you see. I really like all of her products that I have. The skin converters are unbelievably amazing. Don't miss the opportunity to get some of those during this sale, if you like to render characters in Iray.
Edit: Gosh, I sound like an advertisement.
There are just some vendors that I cannot say enough good things about - V3Digitimes, Zev0, Mec4D, ParrotDolphin, etc. They make things that make Daz Studio so much more fun and creative for me.
Completely missed this wonderful product (even though I needed a dirt shader) until I saw this thread and barbult''s amazing demonstration renders.
Thank you barbult for taking the time to produce so many varied examples and post them here. This was therefore an instant buy for me. It comes with a great pdf instruction manual so thank you V3Digitimes, I have several of your other great products.
I must confess I have read the manual and remain a bit confused, but will watch the demonstration YouTube video links and have a go. This will be a very useful product once I get to grips with it.
Wow! I had not recognised my shader on the hammer!! Great job with this one... And it is so funny!!!
ROFL. Yes "procedural" is less usual than mapped. To make a short explanation, the "procedural" shaders will calculate a "noise repartition" between two colors on an object using only the geometry of this object. It won't use the UV Maps at all, but the location of the points on the object. This way you are always seamless. You may have more information looking at "perlin noise" on google since it is the base noise used. Then this noise is used in several inputs, 2 "mixable" noises for colors, 2 "mixable noises" for opacity of the dirt (where there is, where there is no), and a few channels having their own noises.
Barbult is right. This is very easy to use, this was made so that beginners can have good results, and advanced users a lot of fun. Barbult is right (once again) saying this is a "2 or 3 steps" procedure only to get the result :
1. Select the elements you want to "dirtify" or "procedurize"
2. double click the "V3DPD Apply Dirty Shell". If it's the result you wanted, this is over, you can render. (on large structures you may have to increase the shell offset for the result to be visible).
3. If you want to test other types of dirt shaders, just select the shell surfaces, and double click on some of the presets included.
That's all.
Now for the advanced users, an interface is included to "play" with settings and get a wide variety of results, including but not limited to dirt as barbult showed.
There is a pdf included as well as a step by step video documentation which, I hope could push "beginners" to reach the "advanced users" fun on these shaders. The playlist is here. Don't poke fun at the French accent, it is my best English ! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhMqfqgUaaex5wRS3B-gabGhiI0gVucel
Here's a troubleshooting tip. If you select the dirt geometry shell in the Scene pane, and then apply full presets, color presets or opacity shape presets, but nothing happens, it probably means that you forgot to select the geometry shell surfaces in the Surfaces pane. This really applies to any shader, not just A Touch of Dirt, but I seem to keep repeating this common mistake, so I thought I'd mention it here.
When you first use the V3DPD Apply Dirty Shell script, it selects the geometry shell in the scene pane and all the shell surfaces in the Surfaces pane. Great! That makes it so convenient.You are all ready to double-click on any of the shader presets to apply dirt, change the dirt colors, or change dirt opacity shapes. But then you continue to work on your scene, selecting other things in the Scene pane, etc.. If you come back and select the geometry shell later to modify the dirt, don't forget to select the shell surfaces again in the Surfaces pane. Just like any shader, you have to have surfaces selected to apply shader presets.
Good tip.
I have a tip too. As long as I set up the dirt on a shell, I make it selectable via the scene tab. This way, when I use the surface selection tool, I know the surfaces of the shell (and not the one of the initial figure) will be selected. When my work on dirt is over, then I make the shell not selectable again. This allows to gain a lot of time at the end.
...barbult and V3Digitimes, thank you. The effect looks pretty random. I always had an issue with streets and pavements that looked so clean you could eat off them, especially in what is supposed to be a gritty scene. What would be really cool is to figure out how to do the "oil staining" one usually sees on roads and streets.
Also does anyone know if there is an overlay resoruce, commercial or free, for creating tyre skid marks?
Unfortunately, that product is also UV dependent on Genesis 2. I honestly would prefer a UV-independent solution so that I don't have to worry about seams... Ideally, a retopoed geoshell would be the best.
Orcamaid *does* have a UV-indepdent wetmap -- and I do own the product haha! -- but I've never tested its behavior because I have a whole bunch of other products to go through first...
...skid marks and burnouts don't leave a perfect image of the tyre tread.
@V3Digitimes and @Barbult - bought this a couple hours ago. Haven't cracked it open yet, I am still...still ...still rendering an image (weak pc)
Thanks for your information and encouragement. You've got me excited to get into it now. I love the IRay shaders I have, though none of V3Digitimes other stuff... yet. (except for the Lever Action Rifle - good job btw) This could improve a lot of my old discarded (deleted without thinking!) renders. Hate spotless clean Western Bars during a gun fight. Now I get to do that one all over again!
Payday today plus coupon = one happy camper. Its mine now woot! Too bad I was up all night with a large, very scared of thunderstorms dog and then had to work all day so I am too darn tired to even read the directions lol. I have a render I just did a couple days ago that badly needs this product applied to it. I could do it in post work but I like to do as much as possible inside studio. Don't get me wrong i love to do post work but work flow wise and realistically speaking doing as much in studio is just better at least for me.
If you saved the old scene file, pull it up and add dirt. I've resurrected several old scenes.
I started with a dark skinned G3M and added the brown and yellow stripes dirt preset. Then I started clicking on Opacity Shape presets and started sliding controls in the dirt manager!
What planet did he come from?
I used dirt on the bench and one of the "various full presets" on the snake (morphing python), I used some Mec4D Vol 2 shaders on the bench, fence, watering can, some grass, and some leaves and poppies.