Strange and Unusual Iray Shaders

vonHobo

Hello, 

I recently purchased a product called Strange and Unusual Shaders. I did not come with any instructions. 

https://www.daz3d.com/strange-and-unusual-iray-shaders

I have used shaders before, mostly on figures, eg. skin tone. 

This product has me lost. I'm not even sure how to use it. 

I tried to apply one of the shaders to a skull but nothing happens, on the viewport or in the render. 

Is there a good reference on using shaders on objects and how to get them to work? Will these shaders only work on certain type of objects??

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

FSMCDesigns

the description says they glow. Try turning off any light in the scene and see if they show up when you render

vonHobo

I figured it out, I have to select the Surfaces tab and select the object for the shaders to work.

I will also try your suggestion to turn the lights down to see the glowing shaders. Thank you FSMCDesigns. 

 

kenshaw011267

von Hobo said:

I figured it out, I have to select the Surfaces tab and select the object for the shaders to work.

 

That's how all shaders get applied. You select the object, open the surfaces tab and then the specific surface you want to apply the shader to inside the surfaces tab. 

JonnyRay

kenshaw011267 said:

von Hobo said:

I figured it out, I have to select the Surfaces tab and select the object for the shaders to work.

 

That's how all shaders get applied. You select the object, open the surfaces tab and then the specific surface you want to apply the shader to inside the surfaces tab. 

Unless they are actually "materials" where the surface zones are already targetted. I think people new to using standalone shaders probably assume they will work similar to how they apply new materials to clothing. But you're right, this is how shader presets should work. :)

To the OP, I love those shaders. I've used them several times to create "special effects" like turning Sickleyield's Whips and Lashes into posable magic blasts or sci-fi beams.

vonHobo

Thank you Ken! Before this I was struggling with Shaders. I need to read a good DAZ Studio guide book but have not found one that is up-to-date for 4.10.

This info will help tremendously.

 

vonHobo

Thank you JonnyRay. That was going to be my one last question on this, ie. why do some skin shaders work without selecting the surfaces first. So you have cleared that up for me... they are materials where surface zones are already targeted. :)

 

JonnyRay

von Hobo said:

Thank you JonnyRay. That was going to be my one last question on this, ie. why do some skin shaders work without selecting the surfaces first. So you have cleared that up for me... they are materials where surface zones are already targeted. :)

 

Right!

A Material Preset basically says "Apply these settings to the surface called 'Skull' on the selected object."

Whereas a Shader Preset says "Apply these settings to the selected surface on the selected object."

Roman_K2

I was going through my hard drive the other day and to my embarrassment I found a number of instruction sets for products, information that I didn't know I had. They were saved in .PDF format, placed on my drive by DIM.

I wish I knew where "decals" fit into this surface-modification-mix. Example: https://www.daz3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/r/iray-apocalypse-09-daz3d.jpg

Also what is a procedural shader, I wonder, and is that term specific to shaders that actually make new geometry? Just as an example there are shaders that grow polys (as in grass say) as opposed to just coloring a surface, and others are kinda 3-D like knitted wool or chain mail. The latter shaders sometimes seem like they make cut-outs between the steel loops, that allow light to get through. Maybe.

SixDs

The best advice that I can give you, Roman, is to avoid the term "shaders" as much as possible. That is easier said than done, of course, since the use (and often misuse) of the term is so pervasive. Shaders are technically what the render engine uses to determine the properties of a surface relative to how light behaves when it strikes that surface. And they are all built in to the Render engine. A lot of what are commonly referred to as shaders, are not. They are materials and surface settings. They may contain information that tells the render engine which shader to use, but they are not technically shaders in and of themselves. So, IMO, materials is a much better term to use. Others have suggested the term shader preset to differentiate, but largely to no avail.

Now to your actual question. A procedural material in common parlance is one that consists entirely of value settings in the Surfaces tab, with no maps (images) used. That would be a purely procedural material. They work well where a uniform treatment (colour, etc.) is to be applied across the surface. However, to avoid the necessity of having to segregate surfaces into a multitude of small areas where it is desireable to have some variation across a single surface, maps or images are used to apply the variations to that surface. Those maps can be a variety of types, each placed in the correct channel under the Surfaces tab (the correct channels will vary depending on whether you are using 3Delight or Iray). For example. the maps that most users are most familiar with are the diffuse or base colour maps. Plugged into the correct channel, these maps allow a multitude of colour variations across the surface. There are also bump maps: greyscale images that fake relief, adding the appearance of additional details by modifying how light reacts to the surface. Displacement maps can be used to actually alter the geometry of the surface for adding details, rather than faking it, that offers the advantage of showing relief from any viewing angle, rather than straight on (which is where bump maps work best). Then there are normal maps, that alter the behaviour of light striking the surface by changing the angle of the surface normals of the pixels. There are also transparency maps or transmaps for short, that alter the opacity of a surface in some non-uniform way (some parts transparent, some opaque and everything in between). Then there are specular maps that alter the specularity across a surface. In all cases, as I mentioned, such maps are used to vary some property in a non-uniform way across a single surface. The number and type of such maps that may be included with any so-called shader will vary from product to product, and the only way to know is to read the product description.

Lastly, as I mentioned in another thread where you asked, decals would be used in the Layered Image Editor (aka LIE) to add additional details to an image map not present in the original. They are most commonly used to add things like tattoos or scars, or sometimes text or logos to an existing diffuse/base colour map.