Shades of Life shaders

Roland Younger

Hey Folks,
I'm a Dazzer and I recently purchased the Shades of Life - Urban and Nature shaders. I primarily use Lightwave 3d to build my props. Problem is I can't seem to get the shaders (mainly Urban) to map properly to a Lightwave imported prop. Any suggestions.

Thanks in Advance

Richard Haseltine

By default the Shades of Life shaders are project onto the mesh - like a planar projection from the camera instead of using the UVs in Lightwave. You can tell the surface to use UVs instead in the Surfaces pane, with the surface selected.

Roland Younger

Thanks, but still no positive result. I tried but the only change to the surface is in coloration. The defining pattern to the shader will not show up on the object surface. Of further curiosity to me is that I can create a simple plane primitive in Daz, select one of the shades of life urban shaders and it applies nicely. Import a simple plane primitive from Lightwave, apply the shader and only the general color of the selected shader applies. Now the advert for the product suggests that the shaders are applicable to objects from any 3d app. Nor does the merchant documentation speak of having to make all sorts of uv maps for imported props other than maybe adjusting the values in the Daz surface panel (ie) z-depth.

I'm still using version 4.6. Could it be that this is a result of the shaders being more 4.7 friendly?

Richard Haseltine

If you are using a preset, is it from the Projection or UV Mapping folder? If the model isn't UV mapped you must use the Projection folder.

Roland Younger

Thanks Richard for your prompt reply. So essentially what you're saying is that if I wish to use the uv option, I need to create my prop in Lightwave. Then I need to unwrap it and create a uv map for it. Then as I would do for a Lightwave prop, pull it into say photo shop and choose the shader image I intend to use ( shades of life). Resize the image to fit the uv. Save it out as a uv image map, and then it can be correctly applied in Daz as a uv map? Which is ok but I think the product should be marketed as such instead of the implication of a point and click senario. And the projection mapping method overall has always eluded me somewhat. I can see it for some sort of special effect animated application but not for any scene where the applied map is to remain static (ie) a building for instance. Any angle of your camera is going to effect the orientation of your map, animated or static.

Richard Haseltine

As far as I know the projection settings should work regardless of UVs. If not then just any random uv mapping should work. But yes, if you want something more sophisticated than a projection from the camera then you need to map the model as you would any model - the Shades of Life shader is then being used simple as a procedural texture generator.

Roland Younger

Hey thanks again Richard for your input, it's been extremely helpful. And sorry for my delayed response, been very busy of late.

Good Days To Ya'