Topics

1

[C4D] Feature Requests / A shader Wishlist

« on: 2018-10-16, 08:30:32 »

Since my birthday is coming up in a few months, I wanted to make sure that I get everything I want. No ponies this time, I don't feed them anyway.
All these requests are relevant to C4D only.

-Corona Distance Map | This has been on the list for quite some time and aside from multiple AOs, we don't have any working shader that could be used to simulate it. The proximal shader was good, but slow in C4D's AR, in CRN it takes ages.  It would be awesome if the fall-off could be user controlled via a spline.
Getting a (very useful) feature that isn't one of the latest things like openVDB etc. should be more of a priority.

- A metal material mode in the spec. channel | I know that this might fit better into the core feature wishlist section, but because it's tied closely to C4D materials (conductor mode) I'll add it here. This would make conversion a bit less tedious aside from being enormously useful.

- An invert checkbox to glossiness | this would save time by not having to manually invert roughness maps. It'd be great if it would automatically change to the metallic/roughness workflow when the metal mode is activated. The checkbox, however, should always still stay.

Support for:
- Blur (Smoothen) | Sometimes displacements, especially procedurally generated ones need to be softened. The blur-offset/-strength always did a good job. This doesn't work in the DSP channel. Plugging it into multiple shaders doesn't solve the issue.

- Chanlum shader | A native C4D shader that emulates the scattering of fuzzy surfaces without the need for hair and can be used beneath/additionally to hair.

- Lumas Shader | This was basically an old reflection shader with multiple highlights. However, it can be used in AR to mask out AO where there shouldn't be any (eg: areas hit by direct sunlight). Currently, the shader only works within volumes.
A newer or VRay like version with day/night side would be quite useful.


@Everyone, feel free to post your shader wishes here.

2

[C4D] Feature Requests / The curious case of the Hair material preview

« on: 2018-09-16, 07:20:30 »

I sometimes create my own mat. previews. (the files in C4D Folder/library/materialpreview/ )

For the hair-material, I wanted something like the Arnold preview. Lazy as I am, I just converted the file.
The original uses a spline object which I reconverted to hair, cause splines are not supported yet.

However, the preview is pretty slow with hair. The override to use the original scene doesn't do much, it seems to depend on the pass or time limit but renders way slower(~ 10x) than the file itself at the same resolution. Rotation is futile.
It works fine with polygonal geometry but a poly mesh would increase the file size too much, for my taste.
The colors are also a bit off.



Could we get an optimized preview scene for hair?

3

[C4D] Feature Requests / Material Node Graph Performance Profiler(toggle)

« on: 2018-08-23, 13:00:30 »

A toggle to show the computation time of the nodes.
It'd be nice to have something like that:

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[C4D] Feature Requests / Ex-/Include list for denoiser

« on: 2018-08-06, 20:53:52 »

Some areas require more and some less denoising. finding the right balance can be a PITA.

It would be good to have the option either in the rendering options or better yet, in the material's settings.

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[C4D] Feature Requests / Fade-out Radius for Volumes

« on: 2018-07-07, 01:14:14 »

This would be very handy, especially until VDB support is available.

Clouds, for example, the volume creates artifacts at the edges that are hard to remove when the mesh is not primitive shaped. (pic)

A Fade-Out radius where one can choose mm, cm, m, and a numeric value+ the type of the Fade-out (Linear, Cubic, Square...)

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[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / [►C4D] Candle Wax (Beta2)

« on: 2018-06-20, 23:15:57 »

Wax for your candles using the Skin-shader.
Just the material, no scene. (candle maps too big)
Hope you like it!
Get it HERE

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[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / [►C4D] Procedural Dunes and Sand (1.01)

« on: 2018-05-17, 19:42:37 »

A simple dune setup (Size 100 meters) you can use as your base. Everything procedural.
You can easily adjust the dunes from the two gradients and their turbulence modifiers.
When changing those, don't forget to copy the same settings into the color channel.
(Material: dunes)Unfortunately, the weathering shader had to be used to blur the material to one side.
You can control the gradients (grad1 & grad2) from the displacement channel and they will be applied to the color channel.
unfortunately, this is not possible for the modifiers (transform etc.)

It's slow in the beginning but clears up quickly. You might need to increase the samples (weathering shader )for that or try using the unit displacement.
be careful with that as low poly artifacts may break the slopes shading or the shape becoming too sharp.

Use the Layered material as the main material.
Displacement height exaggerated due to weathering shader smoothing too much.
You have to adjust the scales for your scene


Optional bump for the Sand for close-ups.'(Material: dunes)


Add an HDRI with a strong sunlight to the light material if you don't use CRN Sun.

Another type of dune setup if you prefer another workflow. The material is called "experimental".

Subdivision type "loop" recommended for units displacement - if available in your C4D version.

This material is more intended as a foundation or to be mixed with geometry and/or more layers. On a small scale, it can be used for other things.



I like my coffee with milk and sugar

My stuff on Corona Materials for C4D

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[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / CXF - an exchange format for materials/scenes

« on: 2018-04-05, 22:30:13 »

Corona is built to work well with its host applications, though it would be nice to have a separate, exportable format so one could exchange files between applications that use Corona.
There certainly would be some hurdles, as for example, using application specific procedurals and modifiers, but having the bare scene with all the corona materials and their settings would speed up the work.

If there's already something like that in the works, then...change the name to CXF because I came up with it and use Hard Hat Harry(working on him) as the mascot!

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[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / Blur shader or option

« on: 2018-04-03, 18:39:17 »

I like to build many things using shaders instead of textures.
Corona and even the native C4D material doesn't support Blur/offset of many procedurals and/or inside the layer shader.
I haven't gone through all (yet), but bitmaps don't seem to be affected.
This can be quite annoying, especially with displacements when you want to keep some details using the screen space divisions.

A blur shader, especially if it had a masking slot, could enable the creation of more complex materials.


A shader or option in a channel could do wonders...if that's not too much to ask for.

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[C4D] General Discussion / [New Tool] C4Designer V0.4.1 (Substance like shader creation)

« on: 2018-04-01, 20:53:23 »

Hi Guys,

I want to present you something that I've been working on for a while.
Creating, especially layering shaders isn't always easy and can be quite confusing,
so I started my own plugin to emulate Substance Designer's workflow.

Now you can easily drag all your noises, pattern etc. into the xpresso pool, connect it to the py script and that to the channel you want to map.
You can blend, normalize, change curves/HSV, drag-transform and much more with the provided nodes. It also features an interactive 2D preview of the selected node and it works very well with IR.

Notes & how-to are provided in the scene file

Give it a try and tell me what you think!

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[C4D] Resolved Bugs / Corona suddenly missing from menu

« on: 2018-04-01, 15:12:21 »

When I started C4D today, Corona was suddenly gone. The CRN material creation in the bottom menu is also gone.
Help, please!

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[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / [►C4D] Towel (procedural)

« on: 2018-03-10, 05:36:11 »

Here's my proc. Towel (with seams)material.

Easily customizable. Just follow the layer structure.( Add designs etc.)
Or change the top/bottom seams to a different type.

The material relies heavily on the displacement, so adjusting it as well as the overall size(s), to fit your scene is advisable.
I used SSS for the shader ball preview as it gave the best result because I closed the mesh, but depending on your needs, translucency could suit it better.

I've also added a strands material if you want to use hair for a used look or just a close-up.

More info inside the file.

Hope you like it.

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[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / AO reacting to bump normals

« on: 2018-02-23, 12:02:08 »

As some C4D shaders do, it would be nice to have AO and maybe other shaders that don't support it yet/upcoming shaders like curvature to react to the bumps normals.

This is useful for fine details that could be hard to model or ruin the topology/UVs.

Here's something similar in Substance Painter:
https://alg-website.s3.amazonaws.com/uploaded-media/vdeio_2_webm.webm

edit: This reminded me of the AO artifacts .
Correct me if I'm wrong: It seems that the AO shader only takes the geometry normals into account, not the shading normals.
If it took the bump normals, then could that also solve the AO artifact problem?
How does the AO in Corona work?

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[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / [►C4D] CRT-Screen material

« on: 2018-02-19, 15:16:31 »

Here's something fun that may be useful for retro-looking scenes.
The input image is split up into R, G & B. Each color being masked in a dots pattern and later merged with the other colors.

Instructions and Download on Corona-materials.

Known bug: -The input image creates 2 copies of itself when exported w/ assets but behaves normally in regular use. So don't mind the copies in the tex folder in the download.

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[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / [►C4D] Poly Hair "shader" with different settings(Xpresso) V1.2 (Mar.13.18)

« on: 2018-02-14, 00:03:53 »

My first time posting in this section, unnoticed till now...

I just finished my first version of my hair shader for C4D, tried to emulate some features from other renderers.
It works best with non-flat geometry, but with the right settings, that shouldn't be a problem either.
The most important visual controls are controlled by a null-object using Xpresso.

The challenge was to get the hair's angular shift right I hope my procedural layer stacks come close to that. That took a lot of coffee...

If one doesn't fit, then there's another mode and an additional procedural normal bump simulating the scales, also giving an anisotropic effect.

For the diffuse, there are also two options, one being a link to the native c4d hair material. I'd be careful with that as it may easily produce overbright results and other fun stuff...
But if handled correctly, it can be used to create color variations in the hair.

I'm still trying to get a melanin mode, similar to Arnold's but I'm not sure which method to use.
A melanin redness slider is built in if you just want to add a reddish tone to the material but intended for the next version(mode 3).

I hope it's useful to you.

Btw, since this is my first time in this forum, you can find my other materials here.