Shaders

Neverland

Hi, I am no sure if this is the correct place, anyway I go ,

It wasn't long ago that I started using shaders, so I'm a bit of a beginner at this. It had no problems so far, I just selected surface and apply, but this does not work on one product that I bought recently. If someone has it and it works for you, I would appreciate any help to know what I am missing. Thanks!

https://www.daz3d.com/nature-s-variance-shaders-and-props-for-daz-studio

 

felis

The product you have linked to is an older product, and it is 3DL shaders.

So if you are using Iray, then this product wouldn't work.

Edit to add: you can see your render engine on the top, when you select the render settings.

trace_elements_art

Thank you for this!  I just bought the same product and had the same questions.  I didn't know you could switch which render engine you were using!  Thanks for helping out a newbie.

jjoyner

Neverland said:

Hi, I am no sure if this is the correct place, anyway I go ,

It wasn't long ago that I started using shaders, so I'm a bit of a beginner at this. It had no problems so far, I just selected surface and apply, but this does not work on one product that I bought recently. If someone has it and it works for you, I would appreciate any help to know what I am missing. Thanks!

https://www.daz3d.com/nature-s-variance-shaders-and-props-for-daz-studio

 

I bought this product in 2016 but am now just getting around to exploring it.  My questions today were the same as yours.  I couldn’t see any effect of applying a shader color to a tree or bush.  A PDF file comes with the product but it explains what different components of the shader do but not how to actually start using the shader.  After experimenting for a while, I stumbled on how to get started.

• Load one of the trees that comes with the product.
   
• Select the tree in the Scene tab.
   
• Select the tree (or just portions of it) in the Surfaces tab.
   
• Apply one of the fall color shaders.  You can see the changes that the shader makes to the four colors (A, B, C, D) of the selected surfaces in the Surfaces tab.
   
• However, that is not enough yet.  The key is to increase the Ambient Strength.  The Ambient Strength slider takes values between 0% and 100% but it comes in at 0% whenever you apply a new shader color.  That means that no color change will be seen in a 3Delight render.  I raised the value and was then able to see the color change in a 3Delight render.

 

Sven Dullah

jjoyner said:

Neverland said:

Hi, I am no sure if this is the correct place, anyway I go ,

It wasn't long ago that I started using shaders, so I'm a bit of a beginner at this. It had no problems so far, I just selected surface and apply, but this does not work on one product that I bought recently. If someone has it and it works for you, I would appreciate any help to know what I am missing. Thanks!

https://www.daz3d.com/nature-s-variance-shaders-and-props-for-daz-studio

 

I bought this product in 2016 but am now just getting around to exploring it.  My questions today were the same as yours.  I couldn’t see any effect of applying a shader color to a tree or bush.  A PDF file comes with the product but it explains what different components of the shader do but not how to actually start using the shader.  After experimenting for a while, I stumbled on how to get started.

• Load one of the trees that comes with the product.
   
• Select the tree in the Scene tab.
   
• Select the tree (or just portions of it) in the Surfaces tab.
   
• Apply one of the fall color shaders.  You can see the changes that the shader makes to the four colors (A, B, C, D) of the selected surfaces in the Surfaces tab.
   
• However, that is not enough yet.  The key is to increase the Ambient Strength.  The Ambient Strength slider takes values between 0% and 100% but it comes in at 0% whenever you apply a new shader color.  That means that no color change will be seen in a 3Delight render.  I raised the value and was then able to see the color change in a 3Delight render.

 

Hmm, I don't own this particular product, but I don't believe you are supposed to use ambient to bring out the colors, this should give four color options for the DIFFUSE color, not ambience? Might just be you need to add some lighting to see the effect? Ambience is used to make objects appear glowing, which is not the case here. Probably why the ambient slider defaults at 0...

Anyone has a working link to shader documentation?

jjoyner

Sven,

You can access the vendor's PDF document file at Nature's Variance - Shaders And Props for DAZ Studio [Documentation Center] (daz3d.com)

Sven Dullah

jjoyner said:

Sven,

You can access the vendor's PDF document file at Nature's Variance - Shaders And Props for DAZ Studio [Documentation Center] (daz3d.com)

Tks! I just read it and there's no mentioning of having to use ambient to bring out the colors, but there are a lot of mixing/scaling sliders that blend in color noise in various ways, so it looks quite cool, may have to wishlist it after all these years;)

So, if no-one has a different opinion/experience, I'd say I am on the right track here, the shader affects the diffuse color in various ways, and using ambient would be the usual abuse/misuse of ambient/emissive channels, which is quite common among both 3DL- and IRay-users:)) 

jjoyner

Sven Dullah said:

jjoyner said:

Sven,

You can access the vendor's PDF document file at Nature's Variance - Shaders And Props for DAZ Studio [Documentation Center] (daz3d.com)

Tks! I just read it and there's no mentioning of having to use ambient to bring out the colors, but there are a lot of mixing/scaling sliders that blend in color noise in various ways, so it looks quite cool, may have to wishlist it after all these years;)

So, if no-one has a different opinion/experience, I'd say I am on the right track here, the shader affects the diffuse color in various ways, and using ambient would be the usual abuse/misuse of ambient/emissive channels, which is quite common among both 3DL- and IRay-users:)) 

I just tried the product again and today everything works as I would have expected it to do yesterday and exactly as you described.  Today, I did not have to touch the Ambient Strength slider to get a fall colors preset to show in a 3Delight render.  Go figure.

Back to dabbling further with some of the other features.

 

Sven Dullah

jjoyner said:

Sven Dullah said:

jjoyner said:

Sven,

You can access the vendor's PDF document file at Nature's Variance - Shaders And Props for DAZ Studio [Documentation Center] (daz3d.com)

Tks! I just read it and there's no mentioning of having to use ambient to bring out the colors, but there are a lot of mixing/scaling sliders that blend in color noise in various ways, so it looks quite cool, may have to wishlist it after all these years;)

So, if no-one has a different opinion/experience, I'd say I am on the right track here, the shader affects the diffuse color in various ways, and using ambient would be the usual abuse/misuse of ambient/emissive channels, which is quite common among both 3DL- and IRay-users:)) 

I just tried the product again and today everything works as I would have expected it to do yesterday and exactly as you described.  Today, I did not have to touch the Ambient Strength slider to get a fall colors preset to show in a 3Delight render.  Go figure.

Back to dabbling further with some of the other features.

 

Ah good!  Had to wishlist it for now, but will snatch it when the price is right (oh it's right ok, but I'm flat broke atm. heh)!

jjoyner

Sven Dullah said:

Ah good!  Had to wishlist it for now, but will snatch it when the price is right (oh it's right ok, but I'm flat broke atm. heh)!

Of greater interest to you may be Nature Shaders (https://www.daz3d.com/nature-shaders).  Neither it nor Nature's Variance - Shaders And Props is on sale today, but Nature Shaders is $1 less at full price.  I bought Nature Shaders two months after Nature's Variance.  Whereas Nature's Variance only contains 3Delight shaders, Nature Shaders has both 3Delight and Iray shaders and many more shaders than does Nature's Variance.