Chaos Corona Forum
Chaos Corona for Cinema 4D => [C4D] General Discussion => Topic started by: BigAl3D on 2021-05-26, 18:41:58
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So I've noticed in many pre-built materials, including the new material library, that instead of just picking a color in the Diffuse Channel for example, I see a Color Shader. Its only function is to pick a color. What's the advantage of doing this? I can see if you're layering shaders, but with just a simple color in a channel, I don't get it.
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Maybe the same color is plugged in multiple places, so you don't have to change the color value in several places, just one.
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Hello,
to be honest, this is the easy way - Because the materials in the material library are being made inside 3ds Max, it is much easier to export them with colors as shaders. This additionally allows the users to take the shader and use it for other things in the scene, if they choose to have the exact same color in a different material. We felt it wasn't necessary to differentiate "meaningful" and "non-meaningful" uses of the color shader (as you have stated the examples).
We are, as always, open to feedback - We have said that internally that if this proves inconvenient for users, we will allocate more development time and handle it so that the color shaders are used really only when necessary. So if you feel that way, let us know.
Thanks,
Jan
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Ah this makes sense to be able to use the same color setting in multiple places. I haven't gone too deep into the Node Editor, but that seems like the place to take advantage of this. Thanks for answering my question.
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I use the colour shader because it shows a more accurate representation in viewport and allows you to see the output of opacity masks for decals - although transparency itself just shows as a black background.
If you just colour pick, it flood fills the object with colour, only showing opacity when rendering or previewing