Any Questions for iMetal or iFabric Shaders? {Commercial]

barbult

Half Life said:

 

barbult said:

I experimented with the new Detail section of the ifabric shader. I like the way this was added, with an enable button to turn it off and on.I would like to see more examples of using this Detail section. Here is my attempt to apply a normal map and roughness map on the black velvet detail:

One of my favorite tricks with the new Detail parameters is to use the Detail Specular only on the Sheen. This can really simulate velvet very nicely (if you have the right texture).

 

I don't understand the screenshot. It shows Use 'Detail Specular Roughness Mult" set to Off, but it has the roughness map put into "Detail Specular Roughness Mult" (exactly the channel name that is set to Off).

Half Life

The Sheen Detail Specular Roughness Mult parameter is enabling use of that texture for only the Sheen layer.

barbult

I used the texture image you kindly posted, and I tried to copy your settings, but I can't get the nice results you got on the velvet. I get a lot of gray areas. I don't know what you used for the Normal map on the detail, so I left it blank. (I tried several options for the Normal map, including using the image texture you posted as a Height Map, but it didn't make a significant difference.)  Where did I go wrong?

 

Half Life

The normal map I used was just a low intensity white noise. Your settings seem the same to me, the only thing that was cut off in my screencap was the Detail Vertical Tiles setting is the same as the Horizontal (7).

Otherwise, my best guess would be down to different lighting and geometry.

barbult

Half Life said:

The normal map I used was just a low intensity white noise. Your settings seem the same to me, the only thing that was cut off in my screencap was the Detail Vertical Tiles setting is the same as the Horizontal (7).

Otherwise, my best guess would be down to different lighting and geometry.

Thanks for the analysis. I suppose you are correct about the lighting. The white noise normal map sounds like what I used in my black velvet experiment. I just generated a uniform noise pattern in Photoshop and ran the Nvidia Normal Map filter on it. 

Half Life

I needed to run some tests today anyway, so I decided to see if I could get to the bottom of what you are experiencing. I tried both the current release and public beta version to see if there was any difference, but there was not. Then I switched to the default lighting for a new scene in DAZ Studio (using the HDR dome, instead of the Sun Sky dome) -- that showed a big difference. My best guess is due to the light coming from nearly everywhere, the sheen seems too prominent under that lighting. You can try to lower the Sheen Roughness a bit to pull that back, but I thought the better course of action was to use the ability of the sheen to use the Grazing Color. See below before and after example (note: I am using a postwork filter preset I often use for contrast).

Half Life

I have my first new product out today which uses these shaders for optional versions of each texture set: https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-lt-sci-fi-outfit-for-genesis-81-female

Also, check out the freebie "Naturally Real Material Options for Victoria 8.1" I posted here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/558406/naturally-real-material-options-for-victoria-8-1

Eboshijaana

I don't know if you addressed this in your videos, but I assume you can use iFabric to make leather, too?

As an aside, this is a really REALLY good product and I use it on everything fabric/metallic.

Half Life

Eboshijaana said:

I don't know if you addressed this in your videos, but I assume you can use iFabric to make leather, too?

As an aside, this is a really REALLY good product and I use it on everything fabric/metallic.

Thanks, and sorry for the late reply.

I mostly use the iMetal base for leather, since the additional features of iFabric (Sheen, Grazing Color, and Anisotropy Weave) won't really be present in leather. I use iMetal for most things really...  

Eboshijaana

Half Life said:

Eboshijaana said:

I don't know if you addressed this in your videos, but I assume you can use iFabric to make leather, too?

As an aside, this is a really REALLY good product and I use it on everything fabric/metallic.

Thanks, and sorry for the late reply.

I mostly use the iMetal base for leather, since the additional features of iFabric (Sheen, Grazing Color, and Anisotropy Weave) won't really be present in leather. I use iMetal for most things really...  

Ah, right. What would be the settings for leather?

Silas3D

Hi Half Life, loving these shaders!

I'm currently working on a product and would like to use your iMetal shader as I understand this is a merchant resource (you may want to get this added to the store page as there's currently no mention of it being an MR).

However, it's not clear how one would include this with a product - as per this forum post, it would seem a dsf file from the data path would be needed, at least for iFabric (I don't know if the same is true for iMetal shader).

Is it as simple as applying to a figure/prop prior to saving as an asset?

Can we also create material presets of your existing presets or do we need to make changes? Many thanks!

FenixPhoenix

Silas3D said:

Hi Half Life, loving these shaders!

I'm currently working on a product and would like to use your iMetal shader as I understand this is a merchant resource (you may want to get this added to the store page as there's currently no mention of it being an MR).

However, it's not clear how one would include this with a product - as per this forum post, it would seem a dsf file from the data path would be needed, at least for iFabric (I don't know if the same is true for iMetal shader).

Is it as simple as applying to a figure/prop prior to saving as an asset?

Can we also create material presets of your existing presets or do we need to make changes? Many thanks

I asked for clarification regarding this for a product I was doing. The answer is that if you use these shaders, you'd need to add them as a required product. Since the resulting material presets won't work unless the customer has the shaders. It will ask for the shader itself, which you cannot include in your product.

Silas3D

Hi Fenix, ah that is a shame as I don't really want to include an external dependency. I guess I could have two sets of material presets but will need to think about if this is viable for my deadline. Many thanks for the clarification!

FenixPhoenix

Silas3D said:

Hi Fenix, ah that is a shame as I don't really want to include an external dependency. I guess I could have two sets of material presets but will need to think about if this is viable for my deadline. Many thanks for the clarification!

Yeah, that is also why I ended up reworking the materials of that project rather than adding an extra requirement. I wanted to point this out to you precisely to keep you from doing having to re-work things (like I did).

Silas3D

Thanks again, really appreciated!