Basic Tutorials not available?

hrpschrd

I just want to understand shaders but the help file doesn't. There seem to be tutorials from Mark Brenner but they cost $30/month. The YouTube don't cover JUST THE BASICS. Sorry but isn't there help for the simple things in life?

I guess I am frustrated but all I want to do is change the color of an object and then change it back in an animation. Is that a hard thing?

Jaderail

Shaders are a big topic, one example would not cover the full range of Shaders avalible. I will give a brief example of clothing shaders.

A shader is a set that will change just one Material Zone of a item. To apply most shaders you must first select the item in the Scene Tab then you open the Surfaces Tab and select the part of the item you wish to apply the shader to. Then you apply the shader.
The item in the default viewport should change but will not look as expected. Shaders only display properly in Renders, they are calculated at render time so the full render or a spot render is the only way to see what the applied Shader has done. You can only apply Shaders to the different parts that are Listed in the Surfaces Tab.

I hope this helps some. Other types of shaders work the same way mostly but do other things than change the clothing.

hrpschrd

Thanks but I understand that one can drag and drop a shader onto an object. But then I want the object to change color later in the timeline. When I drag another shader to that keyframe the color changes for the whole time of the animation not just at that point.

Jaderail

We can not Animate Shaders in DS at this time. If you Stop your animation at the time you wish the change to be and copy that one frame as the start of a new animation you can then stitch together the two animations in an editor. You could then change the shader whenever you wished, As often as you wished.

I hope that helps you some.

hrpschrd

Sorry, should have mentioned I am using Carrara 6.

What I really want to do is briefly cause the object to flash brightly and then return to the normal shade. If there is another way to do that, great, although it seems like a simple thing to change the color of something.

3DAGE

HI hrpschrd :)

To animate shaders,. in Carrara,. all you do is move the timeline in the sequencer. Open the shader, and change the colour or value of something.
That will create a Key-frame at that point for the "master shader", and you'll see that key-frame in the sequencer time-line.
you can adjust those keyframes,. and you can also change the tweener type "between the two key-frames"

for example:
You could have a Red shader,. changing to Blue, and use the "Oscillate" tweener type, to make it change several times between the two key-frames.

If you want to change "texture map" shaders,. then you need to create a Mixer,. and use a "Value" for the Blend.
then you can animate that value changing from 0 to 100, or 100 to 0, which will change the shader from one image to the other.

Carrara will also load Image sequences, and Video as "texture maps"

Hope it helps :)

Jaderail

The master is here, you will get good help now.

hrpschrd

Thanks 3DAGE! I was able to make a test object change by adding a keyframe; changing the color; and adjusting the tweeners to oscillate. I found that sine oscillation to begin with and a short linear after was best.

The bigger question I have really concerns my lack of understanding of the whole system. When I look at my animation, there are objects, shaders, and scenes. How do I select just one instance of one object to change the shader color, as I did with the simple case above. I still don't really understand master shaders and shader trees. Reading the help file only occasionally helps me. It seems to be written in a fractured structure rather than linear. Tutorials would help but the ones in the Forum seem to be either more advanced or basic fee-based that I don't know the quality of.

WendyLuvsCatz

search cripeman carrara on youtube if you want some cool Carrara tutorials!
free