Shader Question.. need some help please

[JonC]

I am new to Carrara .. Hexgon and to the 3d world..

I bought the software to be able to design cars.. and do some of those great renders that I see here.. ( and other 3d communities) ..

I have found the learning curve a challenge.. but I am up to the task..

I have looked.. looked.. and looked some more.. for some proper Shaders to create Automotive paint.. especially a metal flake texture..


After the purchase.. It seems that Carrara isnt really designed for photorealistic renders.. Or am I mistaken..?


Does anyone have a link to.. buy , download or create a real looking shader for automotive paint..


All over the net I see very nice metal flake textures for other software packages.. but NONE for Carrara..


any help would be greatly appreciated

[Patrick210]

Creating photorealistic images and shaders in Carrara is really no more or less difficult than any other 3D program. It requires an understanding of why things look the way they do and learning to use the different shader channels and some of the plugins to simulate what happens in the real world, along with lighting and environment. Here's a link to a car modeled in Hexagon and rendered in Carrara. Sorry, no metal flake.

http://www.tutengraphics.com/fullpic...front%20sm.jpg

[rickei]

Carrara does a great job with photorealistic still renders.

For automotive work i would say that learing how to use lighting is much more important than shaders. I used to work with a photographer who took many photos for BMW at their plant in Greenville, SC. Sometimes we would spend 2 or 3 days just setting up lighting. Lighting is what shows the shapes and lines on a car, with the shadows and highlights.

As for shading and texturing in 3d, just like lighting, is an art in itself. For example an bump map may look great on a tire from a distance, but you will have to add some displacement (or geometry) if you want it to hold up in a cluse-up. Also, a shader that looks good in your scene can look like crap if the lighting is changed...It all works together.

the first thing i would suggest you do is start playing with HDRI. You will instantly get results much closer to what you are looking for in an automotive render. not only wil HDRI actuall light your scene, it will also give you the reflections for the paint job. there are several HDR's in the free section here a polyloop.
For high quality, Hi-Rez HDRI's look at Dosch Design...You can also make your own, there are tut's everywhere for that.

As for metal flake most of that will take place in the Highlight, Shininess, Reflection, Refraction, and Translucency channels of a multi channel shader.
Not the color channel

Good luck

[chuchingomez]

Hi I can tell u with 100% of true, that Carrara is a Very powerful and easy Application, It’s very addictive because of its friendly layout and interactions USER-APLICATION this is something that u only can realize if u try other 3d software.

I suggest 2 u to give carrara a chance, play with it, and try to read the manual.

If u want a realistic render and animation. I have 2 tell u that for a 100% realistic render; 50% depends in the hi detail and fidelity of your 3d model, the other 40% depends on your knowledge 4 shading and lighting the scene, try to use global illumination, hdri hi radiance image for rendering, and indirect light, u can use depth of field too. The other 10% is in the retouching of your render in applications such as Photoshop.

It’s so sad for me that Daz3d acquired Carrara and hexagon, I really don’t know where is going to end. Because they didn’t design this incredible software.

But really Carrara is very powerful and friendly.

[chuchingomez]

Hi I can tell u with 100% of true, that Carrara is a Very powerful and easy Application, It’s very addictive because of its friendly layout and interactions USER-APLICATION this is something that u only can realize if u try other 3d software.

I suggest 2 u to give carrara a chance, play with it, and try to read the manual.

If u want a realistic render and animation. I have 2 tell u that for a 100% realistic render; 50% depends in the hi detail and fidelity of your 3d model, the other 40% depends on your knowledge 4 shading and lighting the scene, try to use global illumination, hdri hi radiance image for rendering, and indirect light, u can use depth of field too. The other 10% is in the retouching of your render in applications such as Photoshop.

It’s so sad for me that Daz3d acquired Carrara and hexagon, I really don’t know where is going to end. Because they didn’t design this incredible software.

But really Carrara is very powerful and friendly.

[JonC]

Thanks for all of the replies..

I appreciate the response...


To say I am frustrated would be a understatement..

[markbremmer]

Hi JonC,

3D took me awhile to get my head around too. It's sooooooooo different from any other image creation software that I was used to - especially coming from a 2D world.

Stick with it! Definitely worth the trouble. The climb up the learning curve starts slow and hard but accelerates quickly as you figure things out. And Carrara is an excellent software to learn on.

Just keep posting back with questions you have. There are tons of great, helpful people here who were once in your shoes!

Mark

[JonC]

Thanks for the Comments Mark..

Actually I am getting around the 3d programs ok ..

I am having a ton of troubles in Hexagon... I have spent over 5 nights in Hexagon trying to create a fender ( for a car ) properly.. yet.. I can do it with the trial version of Maya.. and Lightwave in less than a hour.. ( I just cant save it.. ) Patrick posted a link to a picture of a corvette the image looks nice.. but...there are the normal Hexagon anomolies in the mesh.. I need to find a way to get around that.. and as of yet I cant seem to do it..

regarding Carrara.. they say that there are image textures included with the program.. yet I dont have any.. example.. if you look at the "global illumination" scene .. ( the one with the trumpet ) .. the image texture on the ground.. it will show up.. yet the image itself is NOT anywhere on my drive.. so if I make a change.. or if I wanted that texture in another scene.. it isnt a option..

the tutorials that came with both programs do not work.. the videos arent there.. the links are dead in the help files..


I have made a commitment to learning 3d.. I really want to do it..

btw.. I am using a Mac Pro running dual Intel Duo 2 processors and 4 gig of ram.. running OSX 10.4.xx

[rickei]

Jon,

I'm not really sure what you are trying to do with your fender, or why it's so much easier in Maya or LW? I'm pretty new to Hex myself, but I have found it fairly easy to get the result I wanted...Though it may take hours to get there. most times i'm just shooting in the dark anyway

what normal hex anomolies are you talking about? I'll have to go look at the vette again.

As for the image map shader, when you pull up the trumpet scene, simply select the plane(floor) and drag the shader down to the browser tab at the bottom, it will be added to "My Shaders"
The image map is stored internally in the file ( you are prompted for that when you save a file).

A lot of Mac people have started using Silo and Modo instead of Hex, due to H2 bugginess. I'm on a G5 powerPC dual 2.0, and have found Hex to be better on some days than others. I bought Silo, and it is pretty stable... as soon as they can get the Mac version up to the 2.0 Beta with displacement painting, I'll probably move over to it. Modo is a little too pricey for me.

Post any hex question in the Hex forum... I'm sure they will be answered by someone much more knowledgeable than me.

[markbremmer]

Hi JonC,

The Carrara Videos are embeded within the .pdf files. If you don't have the Adobe .pdf reader v7 or better, you won't be able to see them.

On the pre-made scenes in Carrara, the textures are embeded with the files. Like rickei said, simply open the file and drag the shader you want into the shader browser.

Carrara does come with a bunch of shaders that show up in the Shader section of the browser. Are you not seeing them there? (screen shot attached) If you don't have these, then there is something else goin on that we can figure out.

I've used Hexagon to make several auto models. Sorry to hear you're having issues with it. (all software has issues! :D) Like you, I'm on a Mac. A couple of the tools in Hex behave differently than I "thought" the should. However, once I became more familiar with the toolsets, creating good meshes became very fast and easy.

Automobiles are actually very complex shapes because of all the compound curves. I became much more sucessful using Hexagon after I developed a work flow - knowing when to do what and use what tool to acheive the complex body shapes.

I do use Amapi for stuff like this too. Most 3D folks have multiple softwares to work with because each has it's own strengths. I really like the way Hex plays with Carrara. And, since I've figured out how to use it, it is very fast to work with - bugs, not withstanding. Hopefully, the bugs will get ironed out in the next release. There was an announcement in the DAZ forums about the next version coming up.

Post back with questions.

Mark

[steve_j]

Mark -- where was this announcement? And was it about Hexagon or Carrara? I've been looking in vain for news.

Steve

[JonC]

Marc..

Thanks for the reply..

Yes I do see these " stock" shaders..

regarding the videos.. I do have the latest version of adobe reader ( I believe) .. I am on OSX 10.4.x so I should have the latest update.. I have searched for the videos on the hard drive.. they simply arent there..

The main problems that I am having are

Hexagon:

I can not add lines to some polygons to create all quads.. having triangles is a bad thing.. I have tried to follow many of the automotive tutorials.. and I always run into getting triangles.. and yet I can not use the suggested method for getting rid of them.. Either the tools simply do not exist in Hexagon.. or.. if they do.. they do not work as expected..


Carrara:

I have tried every car paint tutorial on the net ( that I can find ) to create a real looking metal flake metallic paint texture.. I can get a basic shiny looking paint ok ... but I cant get a believable automotive paint ..

Thanks Again..


Jon

[jones2000u]

Shaders more or less work by simulating real-world properties and their reactions to ambient light, as I understand it.

The reason for not finding metallic flake shaders as is possibly because nobody has used or posted them?

Metallic flake lacquers are a suspension of minute metallic particles in a heavy duty lacquer base, plus colour pigment, so the effect needed would be of a semi-translucent coating of a certain depth with the shiny particles floating inside. That's why metallic paints seem to have a sort of "depthlessness" to them.

Sounds like a job for subsurface scattering to me. There is an excellent tutorial on candle wax in this forum, which would start you on the "depth of colour" road. How you then make the shiny particles is I would imagine going to need a lot of experimenting with bumps, noise and anything else you can lay your hands on. Alternatively, go down to your car showroom with a camera and snap enough flat surface to make a decent ordinary shader!

Happy days!

[Patrick210]

http://www.iprimus.ca/~gfb/tutpaint.htm

Here's an old tute I dug out which has a metalflake shader. As far as getting all quads, That is a function of your modeling technique. There's no simple answer, every situation might take a different method of rearranging whatever topology you're having a problem with. If there are are any anomolies in my Corvette it would be because of the way I modeled it, not because of Hexagon. Hexagon has plenty of tools for putting any edge or vertex wherever you like.

[corzair]

I did download a small set of Car paint shaders

but can not remember from where
and cannot credit who created them, just know that they made then available for free download

see screen shot

this sound like what your after
I guess I could send them to you if you like

need to let me know though

really sorry I cant remember whos they are
could be a free set from a collection but just cant remember

[JonC]

Jones2000

Thanks for the insight.. I am still attempting to learn things.. I did try to get a good snapshot ( 3000 x 3000 ) .. but I couldnt get it to look right..


Patrick..

I think that you did a great job on modeling your corvette.. If you look at your model.. you will see triangles.. and ngons.. it obviously worked well in Carrara.. but.. those could cause troubles in other rendering software packages.. I will post a screenshot of a example where I am getting stuck.. what I am trying.. and what happens..

Last night I nearly got a fender finished.. then.. POOF.. hexagon crashed.. and I lost it..


Corzair:

That is almost EXACTLY what I am looking for.. I do think that I could play with that and get the result I am looking for..

If they were free.. I would really appreciate them.. if not.. I would love a link to buy them..

my email addy is jcurtis6atmac.com

( I changed the @ to at because of web spiders )

[JonC]

I have included a screenshhot of the mesh I am working on.. if you look closely.. you will see that the "flow" isnt right..

this is as close as I can get .. but it isnt right.. it is the only way I can get the wheel well done without creating triangles..


I did some "cheating" weld job on some points.. to get rid of the few triangles I did have..


and yes I do know it is very sloppy..

[mykyl1966]

Could try these.

A bit further down the thread are the second versions.

http://forums.polyloop.net/carrara-e...nt-shader.html

Cheers

Mike R

[LoneGunman]

Originally Posted by JonC

.. having triangles is a bad thing..

Yep, that is what we all are told, but, that is only to make you more directed and tidy when you are starting to model, so you do not go overboard

In the reality, triangles are not bad, only their location on the mesh can be, in some cases they are more efficient (modeling time-wise) if used correctly then searching for that "pure" all-quad solution which often ends up with more geometry then really needed... That all said, if mesh is animated, then hiding them into areas which are rarely deformed is a very good idea

Using some mild fine noise (celular maybe) to mimic flakes and blurred reflections can make a farely convincing car-paint shader in Carrara, however, some high end programs have a special shaders for this (mental ray, for example)

[corzair]

Originally Posted by JonC

Jones2000

Corzair:

That is almost EXACTLY what I am looking for.. I do think that I could play with that and get the result I am looking for..

If they were free.. I would really appreciate them.. if not.. I would love a link to buy them..

my email addy is jcurtis6atmac.com

( I changed the @ to at because of web spiders )

They were either a free sample of metal shaders or from a tutorial

I'll email them - hopefully they'll be of use - i'm very much a novice so i'd be interest in seeing how you get on also...