Question about redirect shader and merge shader (and warp shader)

[efflux]

To get that "cell" look you need to use a voronoi 3D A vector and invert it.

[glen5700]

efflux,

I would love to have voronoi fractal but the first thing I'm after is a more consistent warp effect over the whole texture it is applied too.  To make it more clear I'm uploading an animated gif so it is easier to see what I'm talking about. Watch as it changes, some areas have a lot of warp to them while others areas hardly have any. I can see were this would be desirable but I also want the warp effect to be consistent over the texture it's applied too.

I wasn't too interested in the cell look but I'm glad you brought it up, I need to learn a lot more about functions so i will give it a go.

Thanks,
Glen

[efflux]

That Darktree looks quite good but I have Mojoworld. You can all that stuff in Mojoworld and export as texture. Mojoworld does not have Manhatten Voronoi though. Otherwise, in my opinion, nothing beats Mojoworld for procedural textures.

[efflux]

I just set up a cell type texture. I added a gain to make it very round with the displacement. You can experiment with other functions to change the shape. However, it takes a long time to render.

The warping is problematic because the more you warp the more you lose the voronoi shapes.

Ideally what we want is multiple octaves of voronoi.

I'm going to try to warp with other functions to see what happens.

[efflux]

I tweaked around with your file and got this. Higher displacement settings in the warping fractal and I reduced the displacement setting in the surface layer to get some displacement:

[glen5700]

efflux,
Nice!! It's really what I was after, my problem is I need to keep working with the functions/nodes to get a good understanding of them. I have a scene that I'm working on and once it gets to a decent point I will share the image and a clip or scene file. Hopefully it will be useful to the group.

Thanks,
Glen

[efflux]

I thought maybe I took it too far and you wanted to retain more of the voronoi shape. That's why we need a voronoi fractal but I think this warping can get some great results.

I was actually warping stuff before I came across what this node does. I was doing it with other functions but this node opens up a whole lot of extra techniques.

[Henry Blewer]

It does make an interesting marble texture. It could be rendered, saved, made seamless and then used as an image map.

[efflux]

With the Warp Shader, the displacement vector from the warper is used to offset the texture coordinates before they are used by the shader.

I looked back at what I did in the "Why Mojo user's will not adopt TG2 thread". It turns out I did actually use the warp shader for a file created there then I reverted back to not using it for some reason.

The above quote is a better explanation that the one in the Mojo thread.

It's only when users get a clear picture in their head of the flow in geometry that they can utilize it.

We need explanations collected in the node reference documentation but these explanations need to be very precise. There has to be logic and consistency in all the language and names used.

The position nodes in Mojo are named after whatever position space they are working from.

[efflux]

For example. Mojo users talk about "domain distortion". This is a very clear term which makes you understand exactly what you are doing. What the hell is "warping". Warping what? I understand now but didn't before because of the bad terms used.

[efflux]

Why are "surfaces" in TG2 not simply called materials as is the case in every other other 3D app or maybe in this case surface is actually a better name.

[efflux]

Of course I understand that the idea of domain distortion in Mojoworld is actually different. You distort the position directly with a fractal's output not displacement but still, this "warp" node badly needs a good description entered in the node reference.

[efflux]

Warp + redirect along with some negative displacement in the lower area. Taken to extremes of course. I think my next planet may be called Hoodoos.

[FrankB]

Why are "surfaces" in TG2 not simply called materials as is the case in every other other 3D app or maybe in this case surface is actually a better name.

maybe because a surface shader in TG2 is color & displacement, not just color? To me it makes sense.

Regards,
Frank

[Matt]

Sorry, I've always called it warping the texture space. I see that there's strong precedent for the term 'domain distortion' in various fields, so perhaps I should have called it that. The addition of the word domain or texture coordinates or something might have helped.

The things that are made up of polygons are called surfaces in TG, to distinguish them from volumetrics/atmospherics. I can't call the actual surface a material because a material is something which is assigned to a surface, not the surface itself. (If we're using other 3D apps as an example.) Actually, underneath the GUI I use the term 'material' to assign whole shader trees to a particular surface, e.g. the planet, or a leaf of a plant, but the whole planet or the whole leaf has the same material (in standard 3D app terminology). You don't ever get to use the term material in the GUI because it's represented by the final shader connection to the planet. A material is built up of shaders, and that's where the real work needs to be done. Maybe Surface Layer could be called Material - is that what you meant? But really it's not - it's a smaller component than that, it's just one shader which builds up a whole material which is implied by the connection to the planet. If there were a separate list in the GUI for object parts and the materials assigned to them, then yes I would call them materials, but right now they're defined by the final shader in the shader tree which makes up their materials.

Matt