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Nice work Will. I think my favourite is the moss looking shader you've got on that tank render. Do you mind me asking what are the specs of the computer you're diong this on?
While I'm at it Will, that skin shader looks a bit like it might make a cool toony type skin. Do you have some examples of that in different colors/shades and maybe on a different character? How does something like eyebrows work when you apply a shader like that? (Sorry, I'm half ignorant about this sort of thing and the other half of me is completely ignorant :) so thanks for your time :D .
Actually, if you are going through my Deviantart page, the tank render I suspect you are referring to (Bradley Overgrown) is ACTUALLY using other stuff. The 3DL uses a Moss Shader, the Iray uses Let it Snow with moss textures. So, yeah, not my stuff.
Though now that you MENTION it, I should consider redoing it with my stuff. Hmm.
As for toon, I'll do up some with a cartoonish style. As for eyebrows, you'd either want to do a geoshell with an eyebrow image on it or use an eyebrow fibermesh thing (Laticis has some great freebies for that here: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Laticis-Imagery-Free-Genesis-2-Female-Eyebrows-530979387 and http://laticis.deviantart.com/art/Laticis-Imagery-FREE-LI-G2M-Eyebrows-552435961 )
Just need to write up the tutorial and then I think it'll be ready to submit. Mmm. Wish me luck.
No metallics/rust? You show some on on your DevArt page and Share but not here. Also, it would REALLY help if you labled what these presets are supposed to be, I don't see anything under the "water" category that looks like the ocean sets you've shown. Finally, if you really want this to sell you can never have too many presets and a lot of packs out there are now coming with well upwards of 50 presets. See Parrotdolphin's http://www.daz3d.com/pd-iray-shader-kit-2 ; as a good example of what you're competing against. Never forget that while what you may be selling is versatility, a lot of users will always prefer the convenience of not having to sit there and tweak dials (especially those who're stuck using CPU rendering) so I'd suggest doing presets for several variants of each effect. Of course, if I understand this correctly, you could release the base shader pack and then release add on preset packs later as well.
Which reminds me, is there a way to set up a preset such that it changes values but doesn't actually change the shader?
If I could do that, I could 'safely' add freebies without essentially giving away the actual shader.
Cybersox: The problem I run into is that a lot of the shaders don't look 'appropriate' outside of the context you are using them; ocean ripples don't look 'right' when applied to a small ball vs. the ocean.
What I could do is skip the promo ball thing and just have a few promo shots with shaders labeled. Hmm.
It's not hard to add presets and I have lots of ideas, so I think I'll try to flesh it out. I was approaching it more from 'tools for tinkerers' but making a broader appeal is smart. Thanks for the nudge.
Going to shoot for 16 base shaders and 112 presets.
So, would this be helpful or is it too cluttered?
Experimenting with fleshing things out, found a rain preset I'm happy with.
I dont think it looks cluttered at all. I like it.
And snow... not really fit for a promo, since it's kind of... bland, but the mountain texture is WTZ Snow, there's snowfall, snowy geoshell on the roof, and another variety of cloud in the sky over regular Sun/Sky dome.
Been coming up with a variety of clouds. I can't really do puffy well-defined clouds, you need something more advanced or an actual texture, but a lot of wispy and otherwise 'clouded' skies are quite doable.
Helpful? Yes. Too cluttered? Not at all for the promo illustrations on the sale page. For an included PDF manual? Absolutley essential. The more you can do, the more you need to show.
I'm nost sure why the promo ball has become the default way of showing shaders, as quite often they can be quite misleading. For shaders that cover wide areas like oceans, ground planes, or the inside of a skydome, I'd much prefer something on a flat surface.
That sounds good for a base pack. After that there are a couple of different ways to keep the revenue engine turning. The most obvious is to create lower priced add-on packs of just prests that require the base shader, sort of what Marieah did with the Fabricator. Or, at the other extreme, one could set up a site/thread for crowd sourcing presets the way that Allesandro and Kendall have done with Look At My Hair. Or both in some combination. Either way, by increasing the number of plug and play add ons, you drive up the demand for the original product base.
Ok, I have 10 attempts at promo pics:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/803826/WTZ Promos/WTZ PROMO1.png - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/803826/WTZ Promos/WTZ PROMO10.png
(just change the number)
Thoughts?
Meh. I keep trying to make an Earth-like planet with the shaders, but there are certain problems. Can't get that coriolis cloud effect to make it look right, and the land masses look ... gloppy. Mmph.
I thought the starfield shader preset may have been a bit too subtle, as I could barely see it while looking at my monitor in the day time. I also thought that illustration one was a bit confusing as to what parts were actually using the shader, as the water appeared to be postwork while the skin seemed to be a partial effect.
Yes, PROMO1.png
Ah. Yeah, I guess that needs labels. ;)
The water is actually shader layer, the skin shows dirt and dusty layers, etc. But I suppose I need to call that out explicitly.
(And I suppose it's a very good sign you thought it was postwork!)
Some more skin testing. The skin and freckles use my shader, eyebrows and hair are added items.
I'm not sure how good I can get the skin as a pure procedural thing, but slowly tweaking and tweaking...
heh. Why does this image make me thing of GIJoe? (The version with Life LIke Hair and Kung Fu Grip, not Cobra Commander's archenemies.) For realistic rendering a shader is never going to work on a human face as well as a custom texture map, but as a base for an image that's going to be heavily postprocessed, like a cartoon or comic book look, this would be a much better starting point.
You may have to implement (in pure MDL) your own noise functions....perlin, flow, and worley aren't really suitable for doing skin. There are a LOT of other kinds of noise functions, some of which can allow for much better control over certain aspects. Here's an overview of a lot of them. Look up the papers they cite to find implementation details..... https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~ares.lagae/publications/LLCDDELPZ10SPNF/LLCDDELPZ10SPNF.pdf
More long range, I would think. The human face is the first place you start to hit the uncanny valley, and the lack of differentiation on the lips (and other pink bits) would require using LIE or postwork to nuance it sufficiently for "realism." As to freckles, moles and the like... I suppose the biggest question that I'd have would be whether the placement remained consistent with movement. Also, unless we're talking about a particularly dense frecklecloud, the distribution of skin coloration markings isn't usually consistant from body region to body region. This is where the existing DS mapping works against you, though I suppose tyou could create custome maps for a geoshel. On the other hand, I can see this having a lot of applications for thinks like alien skins or measles, or even for creating displacement layers for goosebumps and so on.
hphoenix: Good to know, though the scope of this is mainly 'I have a Perlin/Worley shader that can do a lot of things, and some of them are neat but not perfect.'
This isn't a specifically skin-oriented shader, so it's just... not going to do skin GREAT.
BUT it's going to be good enough in a number of situations. One benefit is that it handles strange geografts nicely.
Hi, I just popped in here and what you're doing seems really cool. Is there a way with displacement maps to make sand lumpy and gritty? I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I would love a shader for sand that you can put your character's feet in so it looks like the sand is actually covering their feet. I often am dealing with that in postwork and wondering if it's possible to do a shader like that. I have some sand shaders but they're not Iray and they are totally flat. 3Dream is doing something with skull caps and hair with displacement maps or something (for Poser) at Rendo that makes the painted hair actually 3D, not just flat. I'm wondering if it's possible to create 3D lumpy gritty sand Iray shaders? That might be a different project, but I would love a set with different types of sand and pebbles and maybe some cracked shells, sea weed, etc...
My thing does have a displacement option, but Iray displacement has some limitations. 3DL displacement is 'per pixel.' Iray displacement is based on the mesh, so the density of the mesh is a huge limiting factor.
So displacement works, it just tends to look rather smooth/gloppy rather than finely detailed. However, combined with bump, gives it more texture.
So smooth/gloppy sand with a grainy textured bump map could work...?