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Shader Power Tools for Carrara

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Product Name: Shader Power Tools for Carrara
Product ID: 17608
Published Artist(s): Fenric
Created By: N/A
Release Date: 2013-12-11

Product Information

  • Required Products: None

A bundle of indespensible tools certain to rock your world!

The Shader Doctor is in, ready to cure your texture woes by automatically tuning and correcting many common issues with imported content. Standing at the ready is his able assistant, the Skin Doctor, ready to add realism and appeal to imported skin textures.

And if you have a bunch of shaders in need of a minor touch-up, be sure to have the Advanced Shader Tweaker on hand to change them all at once.

When those shaders need more drastic measures, the Multi-Shader Editor can replace entire sub-trees in an entire block of shaders with a few clicks of the mouse!

And don't miss out on three new shaders! The Layer Blending Shader brings Photoshop-sytle layer blending modes to Carrara, while the Enhanced Color Balance and Enhanced Color Merge shaders allow you to do extreme manipulations driven by texture maps!

Product Notes

Installation Packages

Below is a list of the installation package types provided by this product. The name of each package contains a Package Qualifier, which is used as a key to indicate something about the contents of that package.

  • 4 Core

[ ] = Optional, depending on target application(s)

Not all installation packages provide files that are displayed to the user within the interface of an application. The packages listed below, do. The application(s), and the location(s) within each application, are shown below.

Additional Details

  • Shader Doctor
    • This is a one-click solution for automatically adjusting shaders after Poser content is loaded into Carrara. This is specifically intended for the Multi-Channel Shaders created by Poser imports and will not necessarily give desireable results with Carrara native content or Genesis.
    • All selected items, and all child items of selected items are operated on.
    • Operations:
      • Runs the Carrara “Optimize Shader” command to remove useless shader data (such black color reflection)
      • Removes “multiply” from the color channel for texture maps.
      • Sets the Highlight to 15%
      • Copies the texture map to bump if there is no bump.
      • Adjusts the bump amplitude so that anything under 15% is set to 15%, and anything over 90% is set to 45%.
    • If you hold down “Shift” while activating the Shader Doctor, you will be presented with a dialog box where you can enter Highlight, Shininess, and Bump levels. Check the box next to the operation that you wish to change. If you leave a box un-checked, then the Shader Doctor will continue with it's default processing as described above.
  • Skin Doctor
    • The Skin Doctor command is a specialized version of the Shader Doctor especially tuned for human skin shaders. By default, it will produce high-quality shaders utilizing sub-surface scattering. If you need faster rendering, then hold down “Shift” while activating the Skin Doctor to produce slightly lower quality but much faster to render shaders.
  • Advanced Shader Tweaker
    • Select the item or items to have the shaders adjusted for, and select the “Advanced Shader Tweaker” option from the “Fenric” menu, located under the main “Edit” menu.
    • If you hold down the “shift” key while choosing the menu option, then the tweaker will start in “texture filter” mode, where only the texture filtering options will be displayed.
  • Multi-Shader Editor
    • In the ASSEMBLY room, switch to the “shaders” tab of the scene-tree sub-window. Do not go to the shading room, you must remain in the Assembly room.
    • Select the shaders that you wish to edit. ONLY STANDARD MULTI-CHANNEL SHADERS ARE SUPPORTED.
    • Choose Edit | Fenric | Multi Shader Editor.
    • The edit window will open. You will see the 10 standard channels listed as buttons, each with a checkbox. There is also a checkbox and edit control for bump amplitude.
    • To change the value of a channel: check the checkbox, press the button, and prepare the sub-shader according to your liking. Note that not all shader types are capable of being edited in the dialog.
    • When you are ready, press OK. All of the shaders you have selected will be updated with your changes.
  • Blending Mode Shader
    • Takes two subshaders, a “top” and a “bottom”, and applies one of the following:
      • Add = Simply top + bottom. Will clip to white if the result is too high.
      • Subtract = Simply top - bottom. Will clip to black if the result is negative.
      • Difference = top - bottom or bottom - top, whichever would be non-negative
      • Multiply = top * bottom. Will clip to white if the result is too high.
      • Divide = top / (bottom + 0.0000001) “bottom” values near black will not result in pure white.
      • Average = (top + bottom) / 2
      • Darker = takes the darker (closer to black) of top or bottom
      • Lighter = takes the lighter (closer to white) of top or bottom
      • Dissolve = randomly pick between the two layers
      • Screen = 1 - 1)
      • Overlay = if (top < 0.5) then (2 * top * bottom) otherwise (1 - (2 * (1 - top) * (1 - bottom))
      • Soft Light = if (bottom < 0.5) then (2 * top * bottom + (top * top * (1 - (2 * bottom)))) otherwise (2 * top * (1 - bottom)) + (sqrt(top) * 2)
      • Hue = top.H, bottom.L, bottom.S
      • Saturation = bottom.H, bottom.L, top.S
      • Luminosity = bottom.H, top.L, bottom.S
    • Except for the last three:
      • You may choose between operating in either HLS or RGB mode. You may optionally select which of the three components are acted on independently (for instance, you may only want to add the red chanel)
    • The Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity modes always act in HLS mode, and always affect all three components.
    • “Fade” slider
    • The Fade slider allows you to control the strength of the effect, favoring either the top or the bottom layer.
  • Enhanced Color Balance
    • Color Balance allows you to take a single sub-shader, and then adjust the red, green, blue, hue, luminosity, and saturation. The amount of adjustment is determined by another sub-shader, rather than a slider.
  • Enhanced Color Merge
    • Color Merge allows you to take separate sub-shaders and build a new color from them. You can adjust the level of each sub-shader using another sub-shader for insane levels of control!

Resolved Issues

  • None

Known Issues

  • None

Support

Visit our site for technical support questions or concerns.

1)
1 - top) * (1 - bottom
2)
2 * bottom) - 1