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To my understanding, it is the whole ball of wax in the Shader editor. Its all interdependent anyway. Bump, Displacement.. won't even work without a map.
I would think that replacing a diffuse texture map would be "shading", particularly since in order to have the new difffuse map work as well as it should will often require other adjustments.
And.. if you just replace a Diffuse map and save it.. its a "Shader" preset. A texture map is one component of a shader preset or edit.
But thats my take.
Well, in that case I'm not quite getting how this month's contest is supposed to be about shaders, and next one's about textures. How do I keep these apart?
In the render below (still a wip), I played around with the sword, using Age of Armor shaders. If I were to use the sword, change the texture to a metal texture I made myself, and then changed Reflection, Displacement, etc, would that be a kosher entry this month? Next month? Both?
Shaders and textures seem to be linked so closely, I have trouble seeing how to change or use one without touching the other.
So here I've changed the lights slightly and then applied the UberSurface2 shader to the hottub and water, I'm noticing a stronger specular response on the water which I like, but now I think I need to play with the reflection and refraction settings.
The way I'm seeing this contest, for this month I'm just working on applying shaders to the surfaces and playing with the settings until I get things looking the way I want, but I'm leaving the default textures alone, then next month I'm going to work on changing the textures of the objects, maybe changing the wood to a stained wood look, changing the hot tub from the little bumps to something else, but that's just how I read it, btw I love the glistening skin you have going on.
I also don't get the separation, it all seems to be linked so close. Here is some playing with my "steel-ish" preset I used on the plates, changing hue, sat, contrast, depth on the diffuse, bump and displacement unchanged, and then fiddling with everything else, including opacity. Not saying a glass axe and shield would be a good idea however. I'm not entering, so this is fun for me.
Your sword looks nice. I would love to see what you come up with trying your own base diffuse map and going from there.
That greenish weaponry looks like Morrowind! :)
Afaik, in CG rendering processes, textures should be 'what' is rendered and shaders 'how' things are rendered.
In other words, textures are a sort of 'paint' that is attached to meshes, generally they are images of defined dimensions that are wrapped onto the objects meshes; shaders are other parts of the objects materials that define phisical characteristics, like glossiness, reflectivity, opacity and so on. Shaders can also use images (maps) to give complex characteristics to some objects: a typical example are bumpmaps and displacement maps, that shift the texture rendering (and introduce other light effects like shadows) creating an added level of depth to the surfaces where they are applied.
This should be the basic difference between textures and shaders... to my knowledge. Please correct me if i'm wrong or add to this for more detailed knowledge ;)
For the context of this challenge, this month we are using shaders, ie things that are made using the Material room in Poser, whatever the equivalent is called in DS or the Mat room in Bryce, not forgetting Carrara as well. You know those things that need nodes and things added to build up the shader. Have to be done differently in each one of the programs.
Next month we will be concentrating on Textures, ie those that are made by using the Template and Fabric resources to make a JPG texture in an external paint program
We are not here to debate technicalities about which is a texture and which is a shader. We like to keep things quite simple for New Users. and most everyone so far is getting what the contest is all about. :coolsmile:
here is an example of only changing the diffuse map. Since my bump, etc, is generic, I replaced the diffuse map with another, no other settings changed.
And yeah Tobias, my boys played all of the Elder Scrolls, from Morrowind to now, and I got to hear allll about glass armor lol.
But anyhow, this is the stuff I love, where learning more about one part leads to endless possibilities.
This is perfect timing for me. I'm working on a series of character renders that I'm going to have to go through and change the shaders/textures for all of the armor.
Here's my current one, still very much a work in progress.
The armor is Genesis Supersuit with the Paladin preset from the Supersuit Fantasy Pack applied. The helm is from Alruna by Bobbie25. The horns are from V4 Creature Creator Add-Ons
I've gone through and applied one of the pearl shaders from Gemologica to what are supposed to be the plate sections of the armor as well as the helm. I also turned on the bump and displacement maps on both the armor and helm.
I'm still working on trying to get the helm to match the armor better.
Good luck all. I looked at the Uber tutorials, the Age of Armor, attempted them, been at them for 4 hours.
1. I can't, personally, deal with most effects that make any object they are applied to invisible till render stage.
2. I tried a few of the DAZ included shader presets. The flagstone looks like a bag of squashed marshmallows, and the wood is worse. How do you edit these with no clue until the render? Also, the editor was..well.. I had no clue what 98% of it did, and couldn't find the answers nor see anything by trial and error.
3. The tutorials assume a level of innate knowledge. I felt like I was talking to the IT guy again.
I guess I'm the one "not getting it".
So, I'll stick to my "not doing it right" shaders that are not shaders but might be shaders but only sometimes shaders.
Thanks for the basic tutorial. I will have a load of fun with that information. I'll also stop cluttering this with my worthless "eureka" images.
Couldn't help it. Sorry. :), but I feel as if they are now tangental and not needed, as I'm looking at things unrelated to what this is about.
Enjoy the contest, everyone. Sincerely, I mean it. :)
Hm.. wait, does that mean that shader presets and shaders bought from the store isn't counting? While I do plan to try to play around with creating material zones and such.. I have Tried and failed to actually make my own Shader/shaderpreset in that shadermixer in Studio.. despite following the tutorial that is available here on Daz.
If it is creating our own shaders in the shader mixer in Studio, I think we are lacking a good tutorial truth to be told. While I might have missed it as I only have had time to skim through the tutorials, none of them seemed to take up how to actually create a shader in the shadermixer thingie.
As with all the other tutorials ever published, may be a little dated in areas now but generally speaking have some good tips on 'how to'.
http://www.daz3d.com/shader-mixer-tutorial-i
The goal of this contest is for you to make and use a Shader in your program of choice.
This is the difference between Shaders and Textures in DAZ Studio.
A Shader can be applied to ANY Surface of any item and will either flood fill that items material surface with Diffuse, Bump and other settings or just one setting and or will Tile to the users settings in the Surfaces tab when the Horizontal Tiles and Vertical Tiles sections are edited. A shader is 100% free from the items UV map but will respect Material zones. Some Shaders are ONLY a color and settings in other channels such as Glossiness and Reflection.
A Texture is created from the Items UV map and is a Picture that is loaded and then applied to each surface area. The Diffuse Map is often called a Texture but is often just one part of a Texture Set, they can also have Bump, Specular and other maps. These MAPS are All made from the UV map and Applied to the Proper areas of the items UV.
Both Shaders and Textures can and often do use all the channels in the Surfaces Tab. Diffuse, Specular, Ambient, Bump, Displacement, Opacity and others. Any Surface Channel with a Drop down Load area can load a file to be used.
I will do a EASY DAZ Studio SHADER tonight and the Tutorial to go with it. They are EASY to make and use.
Patience, the tutorial you linekd to, is the one I followed.. and I failed hard when trying to use that one in 4.5
Jade, thanks for planning to make a tutorial. I have to admit I hadn't understood that we were supposed to make a shader ourselves that we should use, thanks for clarifying that :) Kinda thought it was mostly to learn to play with different material zones and apply shaders to them, even if it was shaders we had bought here from Daz
It was the below quote that were the reason I never realised we were going to make our own shaders, might want to change that if there is others liek me that has missunderstood :)
Obviously I misunderstood as well.
I've tried playing around with the shader mixer as well and gotten mixed results. I'm looking forward to a simple tutorial, maybe I'll finally get the hang of it.
EDIT: Shader Mixer is NOT needed at all by the way. Just much more powerful in many ways.
Yes the basic shader is very easy. Made my first one the other day and like wow! The Surfaces Tab has certainly made some great add-on improvements and seems to me to be an easy in-between the basic and the 'shader mixer' type thing to made some nifty 'shaders' which can then be used on any surface area. I listed the link to the shader mixer tutorial as there appeared to be a request for one ... but for the purposes of this contest I don't think the 'shader mixer' is being used at all ... unless I missed a post somewhere.
My defns:
texture = piece of cloth
shader = cloth with instructions ready to be applied to any surface
material = cloth with instructions ready to be applied to only one item's referenced material areas
I thought the same you as you Carola. That we would be using shaders...did not realize we are to make shaders.
Thanks Jaderail for making a tutorial.
The ones already posted at the start of the challenge have a lot of great information in them and clarify very well all the different channels.
As I see people are getting confused I thought I would come in and help clarify.
This month is about shaders....technically a texture can be a part of a shader or not though our focus this month is not on a texture but rather the other settings working with that texture to create a certain look (or settings used together to create a look with no textures at all). How is the light reflecting off the surface, does the look they'regoing for look realistic for the type of material they want to simulate etc.
I saw somewhere that someone said you can not have bump or displacement without textures and wanted to clear up. In DS you would have to get a bit more involved and into (shader mixer I think its called) in Poser you would use nodes like Noise, clouds, brick etc that are built into the app (all of which will displace or add bump without adding a mapped texture at all..)
We want you all to experiment and have fun so if you want to play with a texture with your shader, go right ahead...just know for the purposes of the contest it will be the shader settings (choice of diffuse color, strength, use of specular, etc) or modifications that we will be looking at rather then how well you made a texture you used with those things.
In the next post Ill add some examples sometime tomorrow...
Shader Tutorial 1 - A Basic shader for DAZ Studio.
Items you will need, Daz Studio, any Version and that is all. Not even a item for this.
1> In your Create Menu select Primitive. Set it to ANY you like it does not matter.
2> Be sure the Primitive is Selected in the Scene Tab and then open your Surfaces Tab.
3> In the Surfaces tab expand the Primitive and Select the Default header, your Surfaces section will populate with ALL channels.
4> In the Diffuse Color channel is a list of 3 numbers side by side Click on the Color area and not a number.
5> An default color picker will open. Pick a nice base color, for this I picked bright Red.
6> Now in Surfaces Find Glossiness, and set it to around 25%. I set mine to 25%.
7> Under Glossiness is Specular Color, here again in Specular Color click in the Color Area for the picker. Now pick WHITE.
8> Now Scroll way to the near bottom of the Surfaces Tab and find Lighting Model, it will say Plastic. Change it to Glossy (Plastic).
There that's all in the Surfaces Tab.
In your FILE Menu go to Save As and then Shader Preset, you should still have the item selected in the Scene Tab and Default selected in the Surfaces Tab. A File menu will open Enter a Name for your New Plastic Shader and click SAVE. A new menu will open just click Accept.
In your DAZ Studio section find Presets, open it. In it find Shaders and open it. There is your NEW Basic shader. Now run off and put it on something. Here is what I did. Can you pick out my Read Shader? Click image for full size.
COMING SOON a more Advanced type of DAZ Studio Shader Tutorial.
Thank You Jade !! I nver knew it was that easy, any time I've tried to find a way to make a shader myself I've only found about shader mixer, which is just a nightmare for me since I couldn't work out the tutorial :) This, is going to make things easier for me for sure *happy*
Thanks so much Jaderail.
I am looking forward to the Advance Shader Tutorial.
In the meantime...I am going to play. :-)
I made a little PDF a while ago on Normal maps vs Displacement maps in DS.
Normal maps don't add extra geometry so shadow casting wont be correct, but for some type of surfaces it will work very good, and much faster to render, take a look here
Thanks Totte for pdf :)
And another thanks for Jade, following your easy and udnerstandable tutorial, I have now managed to do my very own shader. Did a few changes compared to you, here is what I did :)
Diffuse Color - Skybluish ( 151 205 255 )
Glossiness - 30%
Specular Color - White ( 255 255 255 )
Lightng model - Glossy (Metallic)
And the car I put it on just to test it, I actually kept the sphere I used to make the shader beside the car too *smiles*
Very nice Carola.
I chose a dark purple colour but it kept looking black in renders so changed to a pale yellow.
Like so many things the concept may be relatively simple but the execution is complex.
Thihih
This was kinda dangerous, now that I've learnt a easy and workable way to do my own shaders I have a feeling I wil lspend most of my time doing that than actually doing a render for the contest *laughs*
This is me having some fun. Made two different version of this one, one with only the isngle ferretface, and one where vertical and horisontal tiles were put to 10. There's a few smaller diferences with the two as well, the specular color as well as the lighting model :)
Anyhow, guess I just wanted to show them *sheepish smile*
Ferretfaces :)
I was going to come post up some examples today but it seems you all have covered that quite wonderfully *points up* For anyone confused, this is what we wanted to see hehe other then once you play and get something you like then we wanna see it in a regular artistic render. You can feel free to modify as many things as you like in your image, so play and enjoy!! :)