Will's Freebies

Oso3D · January 2017

Select an object.

In the upper left part of the UI (usually), Create > New Geometry Shell

A geometry shell/geoshell is essentially a linked 'copy' of an object, with Offset to push it above or below (if the offset is negative). A geoshell has the same material zones as the original object but you can set the surface to have different stuff. So if you want, say, a glowing mesh of lights hovering above someone's skin, you could do it as a geoshell with a Cutout Opacity of some map with a lot of white dots and set it's Emission to something.

A geoshell inherits stuff like morphs and subd, rotation, and position. But you can move the geoshell, rotate it, or change it's scale. This can be handy for terrains and tricks where you want a flattened copy of a terrain to intersect with the regular terrain. If you get it right, you can then do something like snow caps, if the geoshell is stretched up, or low lying grasslands, if it's flattened. But it can often look terrible... depending on resolution of the object.

The other important characteristic of Geoshells is Visibility (under parameters), which lets you shut off different material zones you don't want. I find it often useful to shut off the zones around the eyes (eyelashes, pupils, etc) because I generally don't want the effect there (like sweat or dirt)

3Diva · January 2017

timmins.william said:

So this ended up more as a charcoal/gray render shader. It has outlines, but they aren't very sharp. It's a great source for postwork!

It's also FAST. This rendered at 2160x2160 in 90 seconds.

Result, result with postwork, and WT Graysketch.

I really like this shader! I just tinted it colors after applying it and it gives a great effect!

This is with Crush Blacks turned up pretty high in the Tone Mapping setting as well as the "Dark Strokes" filter in Photoshop.

Oso3D · January 2017

And it's released! WTP3!

https://www.sharecg.com/v/87095/view/7/Material-and-Shader/WTP3-Will-Timmins-Procedural-Shaders-for-Iray

Please let me know if you run into problems, share your experiments, and so on.

(And if you really like it/find it useful, consider donating!)

General tip for the displacement shaders:

I changed things around more sensibly. The normal values 'minimum displacement/maximum displacement' will define the range of generated displacement. There's also a Displace Inverted switch so you can easily, well, invert the pattern.

Oso3D · January 2017

Also also, with displacement you need dense meshes. Most of the good results with spheres, I used 256/256 sphere settings. And even then sometimes I subdivided further.

jag11 · January 2017

Tanks Will. I'll try it later.

3Diva · January 2017

I only had time to play with the art shaders so far (stayed up way past my bedtime to play with it, but now it's time for bed lol).

Here's a render (with some post work in PS) that I did with the art shaders:

I REALLY like the art shaders! Awesome work, Will! :D

I'm very much looking forward to working with the other shaders as well (as soon as I get some sleep lol). :)

grinch2901 · January 2017

At a glance, I think you could make the Iray outline/art stuff into a product here. Just sayin.

MelanieL · January 2017

These look like fun! Thanks for all these interesting shaders/presets to play with.

Oso3D · January 2017

Grinch: I tried that with the last pack.

I'm electing to go with less stress.

Oh, note: there's apparently a problem with thin film + spectral rendering, so for the thin film/soap bubble thing, don't use spectral rendering.

(I've tried to bug it but having trouble communicating it to Customer Service)

3Diva · January 2017

These are insanely good shaders! I love them! :D

I've not had the time to try them out much, but I did find the time to set up one scene. Here I've used 7 of your shaders. The entire background/environment is shaded with your shaders except for the leaves.

Excellent shaders, Will. Thank you so much! I wish I had the money to give you a tip/donation because you definitely deserve it!

Oso3D · January 2017

Yeah, I find it great for large filler space like that ground. Also, the basic 'bronze' metal shader works really nicely for a variety of dark metals, even ones that aren't necessarily bronze.

Glad you like it!

sapat · January 2017

Probaby not what you had in mind but I didn't know to make it look like your lava ball, so I used an old mushroom, applied the preset, added the point lights underneath then stuck a barrel under it like it was something that exploded out of the barrel.

I have to leave for a dr appt in a few minutes, but did want to fiddle. I'll have to give it more thought when I have time. Great preset though, thanks!

Oso3D · January 2017

Tip: the 'worn edges' grunge shader isn't that great. The WTW Base ColorBump Corners catches edges much better.

Also, with the corners, very small values (.1 - .04) work best. It's based on 'rounded corners.'

Also also, the brighter the corner color, the more it shows up.

Oso3D · January 2017

Tip with using Outline + Flat white:

Might be worthwhile doing a 'color pass' and then a 'b&w sketch pass.' For pure B&W line-art style, I find it helpful to put a white block in 'environmental map' to get an effect very much like Ambient Occlusion. Controlling the brightness (environmental map strength) can tweak how strong the outline looks.

Oso3D · January 2017

Ok, art workflow experiment:

I did an 'ambient' render of a normal Darius figure (no special shaders). (Ambient: flat white environmental map)

Did a flat white/outline render with directional lighting. Made it B&W, autocontrast (made it 'pop')

Flattened color of first image: Two Darius color layers (copy/paste), top layer set to Overlay, invert it, convert to B&W, set Opacity to 75% (at 100%, the result has no brightness variation; 75% preserves a little of it)

Pull outline layer to top and set it Multiply to add outlines to main image.

Adjust Brightness and Vibrance of the color layer until you like it, then flatten.

Oso3D · January 2017

Oh, also, when trying to get even, shadow-less color, this is one time when camera headlamp is your friend.

Oso3D · January 2017

For the curious, I keep experimenting with different ways to do 'toon shading' that preserves something from the original texture. It's tough without broader processing like 3DL does for 'toon mode.'

Posterize... is sometimes useful, but most skin looks godawful with it.

Oso3D · January 2017

Well, huh. This actually works nicely.

WT Focus Color

Use:

Focus Color is the color tint that the base color will focus on/veer toward, based on Focus Strength.

Focus Strength: How much Focus Color dominates. At 0, there is no focus color effect. At high values, the surface becomes just focus color.

Image shows Darius with the varying levels. What's nice about this is that this helps keep some of the skin variety, particularly around the lips and other bits (and palms, for black characters), while smoothing out texture. Darius is an extreme case where his skin has a LOT of variation, for smoother skin types lower values are fine.

This will be part of my next release, WT4. (or maybe WTP4, depending on how many procedural shaders I use)

AndyS · January 2017

Hi William,

Now I found the time to play around with your shaders.

In Bump-Mode it looks pretty good. But in certain situations I prefer real displacement even on iRay.

Which ones use displacement?
I tried the ocen and the snd shaders and couldn't get it. I think the divisions on my test plane are dense enough. I can't see any entry for the displacement pattren in the parameters.
How to activate the displacement?

Oso3D · January 2017

Only some of the stuff has Displacement. If the shader name (when you apply it, at the top of the surfaces) doesn't say Displace somewhere, it's not a displacement procedural shader.

Also, if you look at the shader's icon, if the edge is uneven, it's probably a displacement shader.

Glancing over the list, the following are displacement shaders:

All the Blocks shaders, Construction (Crusty ancient bronze, lumpy metal), Flesh (Flesh blobby, slime mold deep, translucent blobby), Ground (Boulder, Cracks, Craggy cracked lava, Craggy gray rock dis, Flagstones rounded, Flagstones, Fractured beach), Machine (Electric city, Mazy, TechBall), Plants (Spines), Water & Ice (Snow Encrusted).

Plus, of course, the Base shaders that mention Displace.

Oso3D · January 2017

If you've applied it and it looks not very detailed in the displacement... you need a denser mesh. When I use spheres, I usually use at least 64/64. Planes, 128-256. For human(ish) figures, at least SubD3.

AndyS · January 2017

Hi William,

thanks for the explanation.

What about Ground-Sand and the Ocean?
I know very well about the "density" problem.
OK, for Ocean in iRay that would result in millions of divisions - exceeding every GPU card But my CPU-only system is capable.
At least for (Beach)Sand in some sets I prefer displacement. Any chance to do that?
And what about a freshly dug up sand shader?

Oso3D · January 2017

You can do ocean yourself with the base shader WTP ColorBump TopRot Displace, copy over the Green Sea stuff, make sure displacement is on, and tweak displacement and transmitted distance.

Or I can do it for you, here's an Ocean shader preset. Should work for large shallow cubes. I had Divisions at 256, also subdivided it.

I'll work on a sand thing in a bit, but you could do something similar -- just copy sand shader over the Boulder shader or Fractured Beach (fractured beach might be along the lines of what you want)

Oso3D · January 2017

Tip about ocean and water shaders:

You're going to want to tweak Transmitted distance. This governs how 'deep' into a volume it switches to whatever the transmitted color is. For water, a difference between refraction and transmitted color is a great way to create a sense of shallow vs. deep water.

You will also want to tweak SSS, particularly the direction component.

Combining the two effects can let you have nicely translucent waves while deeper water is, well, dark.

Also keep in mind that refraction + bump/waves is going to obscure stuff in the water. Realistic water is not very transparent unless it is fairly still.

Oso3D · January 2017

Here's one result of the shader I posted:

3Diva · February 2017

timmins.william said:

Here's one result of the shader I posted:

That's fantastic! It looks great. Thank you for the water and ocean tips, I've screen shotted it for my tutorials folder. :)

AndyS · February 2017

Oh yes,

timmins.william said:

Here's one result of the shader I posted:

that image demonstrates very good, why real displacement is mandatory (even in iRay), although easily exceeding the GPU card's RAM.

Next I'm going to try your hints. But not quite sure, if I really understood your procedure.

AndyS · February 2017

Hi William,

now I tried out your shader. Yep, works great.

But I have one problem: As soon as I have the Sub-Ds dense enough, I get the diplacement "waves" only as rough sharp triangled elevations. The small structures you produce by bump are way to sharp / rough too, compared with your "promo" picture.
How did you smooth these structures?

Oso3D · February 2017

If you are getting rough sharp triangled elevations, your mesh density is too low.

For the bump, it's probably an issue of scale. Play with the tiling and bump strength until you are happy with the result (I would test it with refraction at 0 until things look right, then turn it back on)

AndyS · February 2017

What is your base division density (divs / meter)?
I have a 500 m cube and the displace tiling at 0.2.

Or did I pick on the wrong parameters?

I have a swimmer in the water for size compare.

Edit:
The question the other way round:
What are the necessary cube parameters for that shader to work with?

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