Shaders!
Jason Galterio
Posts: 2,562
I am not sure if anyone has asked for this already, but it is a feature I would really appreciate...
A way to differentiate between different types of Shaders while within DS. What I mean is being able to easily see which Shaders are Iray, which are 3Delight, etc. etc. Right now it seems like it is left to the discretion of the vendor if they state Iray somewhere in the interface.
I've looked in Smart Content, Content Library, and Render Settings but don't see any way to tell which is which.
I don't even need it added to DS. Just having a tag in DIM that would allow me to install those Shaders to different directories would be helpful.
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Comments
If you look at the shaders under the Surface tab (then click on the Preset sub tab), and then open up Shaders in the preset list. The iray ones are listed under a separate tree, everything else you can assume is for 3DL
Most Iray shaders are indeed labeled as such if you are using Smart Content.
Oh nice. Thank you for the tip. I never even knew that was there.
In fact, I was already to argue about it, but I did my due diligence first and fired up DS to look. And sure enough there it is... And I would swear you snuck into my computer and put it there, because I was sure none of this existed an hour ago.
Is it safe to assume that these are *all* of the available Iray Shaders? I hate starting to use something, getting dependent on it, then realizing that half my content is missing from the process.
If the iRay shaders are from the DAZ store then they almost certainly have smart content meta data. Shaders from other stores, or freebies, may have meta data, but likely not. 3DL shaders that are older than 2 years or so are also not that likely to have meta data.
I don't use Smart Content. More than 50% of my DAZ items do not appear in it.
That percentage goes even higher when I include my Renderosity and such content.
The tab that Havos pointed out is handy, but kind of inconviently placed. Having to flip between the Surfaces sub tab and the Shaders sub tab is going to be a headache. I like have the Content Library open in one window and the Surfaces in the other. This makes it easy to quickly go through all the surfaces in a model.
What I am probably going to do is a filename::iray search in DIM, uninstall all that meet the criteria, then reinstall them to their own content directory. This will isolate all of my Iray shaders. It's kind of the nuclear option, but I don't see another easy way.
I can see your point regarding the flipping back and forth. I do use smart content a fair bit, but I am aware that I have other products without it. When I am converting an older product to iRay shaders I normally select all the surfaces of the figure/prop and then go to Presets to make everything iRay Uber. After that I go through the individual surfaces changing those that most need the proper iRay shaders, these tend to be shiny metals, glass, water and other liquids.
I do the exact same thing. Which is why I was getting irritated trying to find the right Shaders.
I also do this when I am setting up the scene into subscenes... If I have the environment as a plain white texture (say a building or such) then I find it easier to start adding the furniture and such. This way I can place all the furniture where I want it to be.
This makes it easy to then delete out the white environment items, re-texture the furniture, and then merge the scenes.
If I can subdivide the scene it makes it a lot easier to work out the details and not miss anything important.
I mentioned it because you did, in your original post: "I've looked in Smart Content...."
Smart Content's latest overhaul has imroved it dramatically. You may not be finding older products in there, but anything post-Iray certainly should show up there.
Adding 3rd party content isn't all that difficult either; I've done it for things I rely on and want quick access to.
Oh, I understand, and I apologize if it sounded like I was knocking your suggestion (or Smart Content in general). That was not my intention.
Smart Content just hasn't worked for me because I am so use to my workflow pre-Smart Content. I am not adverse to learning it, but would rather that it was fully enabled before I embraced it.
I aslo avoid catagorizing myself as well. I spent a few months doing this a couple of years ago, only to have a database crash wipe out all of that effort. So now I just try to work within the boundaries of what is available without trying to do anything fancy.
That was briefly true. Unfortunately, 4.9 and DAZ Connect have rather bolluxed it up for at least some of us.
And then there are those of us who have working smart content for the first time ever. I've found it to be a huge time saver, especially when looking at my shaders to see what I need/want to work on.
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For me, the presets tab.in the surfaces window means i don't need multiple windows open. If you use the surface selection tool, it gets even easier