"Rim Shader" of the "Crater Shader"

Started by TheBadger, December 04, 2014, 12:28:04 AM

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TheBadger

What was the intent of the "rim shader" in the crater shader? Not really clear to me what I may want to use this for.
Also was curious why the crater shader does not have a mask input, though I don't exactly have an idea that I would need to mask it right now. Just asking about it in general.
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Dune

The rim input is nothing but a masked input, so anything you add there just works on the rim. Try adding huge displacements... then changing the rim size.
And you can add a crater shader as child to a surface shader, and mask the surface shader if you need to (for instance) cut off half of the crater, or lower the front side by PF or simple shape. Lots of possibilities.

TheBadger

Ahh, well thats a pretty straight forward thing then. Thanks  :)
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WAS

It's for creating your blast-zone for craters. For example you could pipe in some varying warping lines to give it that 'spread' look on moons.

Oshyan

I dunno Badger, did you *try it*? :D

- Oshyan

TheBadger

Quote from: Oshyan on December 05, 2014, 12:01:36 AM
I dunno Badger, did you *try it*? :D

- Oshyan

Tried to find out what it was on the wikki. Not sure exactly why a few of you guys believe endlessly testing things on your own is a good use of time? That there is no answer in the wiki is not a failing on my part.  ;)
It has been eaten.

Oshyan

#6
You're certainly right about that. But I also think the best way to learn really is to try something yourself. That of course makes certain assumptions that are not always (or even often?) true such as that you know how to try in the first place, that trying will not take a whole ton of time, and/or that you have a lot of time to try things. That being said I still think it's a good policy to take a stab at it first, *try* to try as a start, and if you fail or learn nothing, then ask. When it works it's a better, faster way.

The key is to have a clear testing method and time limit. Give yourself 10 minutes to figure it out (or 5 if you're really starved for time), and try just plugging in one each of a shader that outputs Color and one that outputs Displacement, and see what effect there is, if any. Those are the two main types of data in TG, and both are output by the Power Fractal, so you can literally test almost any non-Function shader by feeding a Power Fractal into it. Just make sure its Displacement setting is larger than the default of 1, maybe 100, so you can see larger-scale effects; it may be too much, but at least you'll see *some* effect. Also be sure High and Low output colors are enabled.

Anyway, as I said this is not to excuse any lack of documentation, that needs to be resolved too. But it doesn't solve everything. What is the first thing you're going to do once you read "The Crater Rim Shader input allows you to specify a displacement shader that only affects the crater rim or edge"? My guess is you're going to try it to see what that actually looks like in TG. A really impatient and/or clever user would thus try it first and seek further info if they weren't able to understand. ;)

- Oshyan

Dune

Experimentation is paramount! Best way to learn.

j meyer