a little video for the distance shader tutorial

[FrankB]

note: if you know how to make use of the distance shader, don't bother to see the tutorial.

Following the suggestion of some of my visitors at the tech article section of NWDA, I have added a quick and simple video to the distance shader article, to demonstrate one use example for the distance shader: how to blend away all clouds near the camera.

http://nwda.webnode.com/news/distance-shader-magic/

Regards,
Frank

[rcallicotte]

Thanks Frank.  This little diddy has always seemed a mystery to me and I hope I learn from this.

[tempaccount]

A little something that always helps me to tweak the distance shader is to connect it to the planet surface shader, so I can visibly see the distance it renders visible.

[inkydigit]

nice one Frank!... will find this useful, should reduce the amount of 'random seed' buttons I hit in the clouds!!Tempaccount also thanks for the tip!

[FrankB]

Since I learned about the distance shader a long while back, there has barely been a tgd without one. I use it for so many things.
I also quite often create a second camera for the distance shader, then move that camera to where I want a certain effect to appear, such as for example strata - sometimes I don't want them to be everywhere, rather more in the distance, so I let a camera hover over a distant mountain, attach it to a distance shader and let that be the blend mask for the strata shader. Of course you could use a painted shader for that as well, but the distance shader let you choose the "fade out gradient".
There are many other examples of how using the distance shader makes sense.

[Goms]

Also the Distance shader is great for single islands in combination with a bias- or square-scalar function. it can give really good results if you handle it correct.

[Zylot]

I love the distance shader, it's greate for controlling the terrain closer to the camera, and keeping epic mountains off in the distance if need be.