Hi there.
I am loving the potential staggering amount of tweaking and configuration in the prog thus far! However, I have problems with the Fake Stones shader.
I apply a surface layer, and set the displacement function to Fake Stones. My problem is that no matter how much I seem to tweak the shader, the layer or my camera viewpoint the stones look very geomatric/cubic. Is there anything I'm not doing right here?
Cheers,
Eoin.
Quote from: EoinArmstrong on December 21, 2006, 06:07:59 AM
Hi there.
I am loving the potential staggering amount of tweaking and configuration in the prog thus far! However, I have problems with the Fake Stones shader.
I apply a surface layer, and set the displacement function to Fake Stones. My problem is that no matter how much I seem to tweak the shader, the layer or my camera viewpoint the stones look very geomatric/cubic. Is there anything I'm not doing right here?
Cheers,
Eoin.
Hi Eoin,
the bare fake stones do have very simple geometry. So in order to make them look more intersting, the need additional small-scale displacements and color shading before looking decent. Look for the internal tnetwork of the fake stone shader and try to think of something you could do against the surface port within the internal network.
Regards,
Frank
Will have another nose around - thanks for the response, Frank :)
you should also play around with the "number of faces" option. fewer faces the squarer it'll look but too many will look to round.
hth
Number of faces? I'm in the Fake stones shader box and I simply can't see that setting anywhere... oh well...
sorry, number of faces option is in the rock object's properties
gr
hehe - thanks anyway Gerry - you had my head spinning for a few moments, though!
Great tips, thanks all!
I also can´t find the number of faces option...well not yet anymore, cuz yesterday I saw it somewhere >:(
edit: ah well...it was in the rock formation properties :)
I figured out it is also possible to apply phototextures to the stone shaders, after fiddling with the number of repeats (sounds familiar :) ) you can get nice results.
I first connected a twist and shear shader and then a image map shader to the fake rock shader.
After a bit of tweaking you´ll get nice formed rocks, also with a lot of variation, and textured.
Will persevere in fiddling! Thanks for the heads-up on twist and shear...
Oh yeah for sure it will persevere in fiddling :)
It took a couple of days to understand the functions of TG 0.9x, but months to master them ;)
It seems with TG2 it takes a lot more time to understand its functions and powers and even more time to master them, I hate it! ;D
This is my simple stone set up
(http://cablemodem.fibertel.com.ar/fertoff/stone-sample.jpg)
Just tweak the power fractal a little bit and you should get nice stones.
Of course you can add other shaders so as to complicate things up a bit.
Mate, you are a king among men ;D
Edit: What I had been trying to do is apply the fake stones shader as a displacement into a surface layer. This doesn't seem to work (aat least, not the way I was doing it). Am now looking into how you can distribute different stone shaders to different surfaces (therefore enablng me to distribute them by height and slope)...
Cheers!
How can you see the internal network of the fake stones shader? I see nothing.
You mean you can't see the node in the network, or you see nothing when you double click the node?
I think you can also connect a distribution shader to the fake stones shader to control height and slopes constraints.
Toffolo thanks for the tip! :)
And thanks for the tip there too, tangled :)
Quote from: efflux on December 22, 2006, 04:20:26 AM
How can you see the internal network of the fake stones shader? I see nothing.
Look at the screenshot posted here. Right next to the shader name is a funny little simple that lead to the internal networ. all shaders have that. Some shaders though, don't have any ports in the internal network to connect something to. fake stones tough have a surface port in the regular node, you can directly connect stuff to it.
so it's correct I won't see an internal network when clicking on that funny little button you mentioned in my fake stones shader?
Right clicking on the node also brings up the option to see the internal network.
I love the fake stones shader!! I think I'm going to devote a large amount of time towards displacements. I've always been curious if it were possible, with the right combination of displacements, to make a rock look almost similar to a snowflake...although granted, it's probably easier just to make a plane object population with a snowflake image map.
I see no nodes when I try to access internal network. I've made my way around learning how TG2 works pretty quickly because I use Mojoworld which is a good program to come from for understanding TG2 nodes. I've had some problems with crashes and I am still trying to get to the core of TG e.g. nodes that allow me to build at a low level. Function nodes. So although my credit card is at the ready I still haven't purchased TG Deep. Are there any limitations to accessing node functions in the free version?
There are no limitations on the node functionality in the current free Technology Preview.
Note also that many more node types are yet to be added. Currently there are many customized nodes for specific functions (Surface Layer, etc.), there are some more standardized and multi-purpose nodes (Power Fractal, etc.), and then there are many math-type operators in the Function Nodes. Additional generalized nodes such as "distance from object" will be implemented in the future.
- Oshyan
Could somebody please upload an idiot proof screen grab of where the 'number of faces' entry field is?
Cheers.
note that the number of faces option is for a Rock object, not for any part of the Fake Stones Shader:
This might help. Its an older .tgd file, but I'm pretty sure it will work on the TGPreview.
[attachurl=#]
This is a render of that file:
[attachthumb=#]
This is an image of this type of "fake rock" in a landscape:
[attachthumb=#]
The last image was created using an older alpha version of TG2.