Few problems with shader mixer
drinformation
Posts: 119
I've been trying to make my own iRay shaders for past few weeks by I encountered so many problems I can't even remember them all, can somebody help me start please? some of my problems are:
- I can't find any good, recent tutorials.
- the documentation is all links to "Page Not Found" and "you don't have permission to access this page" pages.
- can't find any explanation about the bricks and what each one of them do
- created a primitive, applied uber shader to it, imported it to shader mixer and applied it without any change and everything in the editor changed. I can't even reverse engineer a shader to find out which brick is attached to which parameter...
- how do I even create a bare minimum iRay shader?
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Comments
Using the File>New command in the Shader Mixer pane (not the main File emnu) while iray is the current redner engine will give a basic starting point. Iray shaders do seem to be more complex than 3Delight shaders, or to be made of lower-level bricks so that they look more complex at least.
thanks, that solved my problem number 5, and oddly I understand those bricks. now I remembered three other problems:
1 No, the preview doesn't work for iray only for 3Delight.
3 There isn't a search function, as far as I am aware
thanks Richard, can anybody answer my remaining problems?
4. may, at least in part, be because the original sahder has various proeprties set to auto-hide when not relevant (for example, if the emissive colour is black the emissive temperature and luminance will be hidden). When you import into Shader Mixer and re-export that is lost and all properties are visible.
Documentation? Hahahahahahahahaha
yeah, basically, stumble around and try stuff. And memorize where everything is.
ok, I'll give up on iRay and use UV maps instead, however I would need the rounded corners to keep my poly count low, how can I add it to a new shader?
...and this is a horrible oversight. With the number of blocks in the list now, finding ANYTHING in the lists is a HUGE timesink. A search box in the shader mixer is a MUCH NEEDED addition.
I counted 560+ Iray related bricks, definitely a search filter is needed.
This is the list of Iray(MDL) related bricks, I suggest saving to a text file. This list should save some time.
thank you jag11 that's a big help.
Now I've found the "MDL/Default Modules/state/Rounded Corner Normal" and made a user input for it but I have no idea where to connect anything else and what other bricks I need, can I get some help please?
so the "Tech Support" was no help at all, can somebody tell me how to set up that "Rounded Corner Normal" brick please? I just need to know how to add it to a new shader.
Is this what you require?
Most of this info is in the MDL language specification at http://mdlhandbook.com, So I think that's the reason Tech Support could'nt help. And here in the forums a very few people adventure in the uncharted shader mixer land.
Here is the link to a finished shader. The shader corresponds to the image below.
Play with the shader and give feed back of what it does or how does it work.
thank you jag11, the picture did the work, I managed to find the blocks in the picture and add the rounded corners to the new material. adding it to every material I have is a lengthy process specially adding the user controls, do you know any way to speed it up? for example grouping the bricks as one and save it as one brick
That's exactly how to speed it up: if you have a brick algorithm-- or even just a common brick you need to use in a certain dial setting over and over again-- save it out as a Custom Brick. Name it something memorable, and make sure S/M can find your Custom Bricks library. It will save hours down the line.
I'm trying to do that but the more I go forward, the more broken things I find in the shader mixer:
sometimes I wonder if daz developers ever looked at similar programs interface to learn a thing or two about how to design something that is actually user friendly
Well, Shader Mixer/Builder were among the first node-based editors for 3delight (and perhaps RSL in gernal) as I recall so there weren't that many diect comparisons - different shader systems lend themselves to different approaches, and those I've encountered all tend to require some digging.
The lack of a search function for bricks in Shader Mixer has been pointed out long ago.......It's been needed for some time, but since Shader Mixer and Shader Builder are two of the LEAST used areas (by end-users) they are probably pretty low priority for the developers.
We keep hoping, but haven't seen any indications they're even working on it, or if it's even on the backlog of items.
we don't use it because it's just terrible, I use blender's node editor everyday for everything, I bet there's even a node in it that will brew me a good coffee. a powerful node editor is the backbone of a powerful software and the big welcome sign to professionals