Gradient Hacks

[efflux]

I started work on some procedural textures with colour gradients. This is just a rough test render with a very basic gradient. Imagine multiple gradients! I've actually got a better hack than the one used here. All will be revealed after I play. 

The hacks are good because they don't involve maths functions so easy to change the number of colours. A proper gradient would be cool but difficult, although we just need effects that work. I haven't worked out a true maths gradient yet.

This will be cool for realistic rock textures as well.

[dhavalmistry]

talking of gradients...is it possible to apply a linear gradient that goes from left to right and covers everything on it way??.....

nice work here....

[rcallicotte]

This is the 60s, no doubt.   

Let us see what happens and what you have time to tell us will be interesting.

[efflux]

I'm tweaking around with what I think is the best idea.

dhavalmistry. If you mean do the colours gradually blend, then yes they do. That's the trouble with creating a gradient, getting a smooth change across the colours. Ideally it needs maths functions but I've hacked it somewhat.

[dhavalmistry]

can it be masked???.....


good job!

[efflux]

How do you mean by masked?

[efflux]

Next hack tested:

[dhavalmistry]

How do you mean by masked?

I mean apply the gradient to different regions of the scene and limiting it to surrounding areas.....

[efflux]

You can use anything that outputs colour for masks so that's no problem. You can do anything in the node graph. Even split the colours up for different masks.

This is my next test. Blending two gradients:



Below is a simple gradient hack for colours in a tgd. I can't just show you a screenshot. You wont see how it's connected. Basically, I just mixed all the colours together with another colour. It's default set to black. This doesn't provide good control of saturation in the blending zones so I just stuck a colour saturation node after the graph and set it to 2. You can play around with that setting. What I like in this hack is that you can mess around with the blending colour between each colour. Adjust the colour offset of the fractal to change how the fractal controls the colour. Basically, it's a hack that gets you gradients beyond two colours but I like the creativity in being able to get strange gradient graphs. It has limitations but the cool thing is that it's easy to add more nodes of colours. The fractal is also controlling displacement in that surface layer.

There is no excuse now for not getting more interesting rock colours 

I want to add some functions now to for example, limit and repeat the gradient.

[dhavalmistry]

thanx will check it out when I get home.....

[sjefen]

This is very special alright. Lots of colours. Cool.

[efflux]

There is no end to the beautiful colour patterns. You can't do this with two colour gradients:

[old_blaggard]

Wow, this is beautiful!  Thanks for sharing.

[dhavalmistry]

DAMN!!.....its like a maze of functions in here......

can we get a simpler version please???.....gradient of 2 colors maybe

[efflux]

A simpler version would be just using a power fractal's two colour gradient but that's limiting. You can't get all the striations along the fractal shapes and interesting blends. That's why I'm experimenting with this. If you tweak all the Constant colour nodes, the Constant scalar attached to the Adjust saturation colour and the Colour offset inside the fractal node then you will get some intersting results. We have no proper hard coded colour gradient so you have play with graphs. Also, these gradients could be used to drive displacements but I haven't tried that yet.