Convenient ShaderFX alternative ???

gnoop

Years ago I loved that cool 3d max plugin   but since they  inserted it inside , I no more able to use it.   Kind of example of "better is enemy of good"     Slow, hardly interactive, over complicated and too low level for an artist    with a lot of puzzles and choices irrelevant to art tasks.   

In a word I'd like to find an alternative . Something I would use for shader prototypes /examples  to   programmer and doing subtle tweaks.       A bit more complex than  what's available within Blender node network , still same easy to use , same instantly interactive, having node bypass  command, with baking   branch to texture  etc.   

shaderfx

It is definitely a challenge to find the right balance to "artist friendly" with something that is inherently very technical like shaders. You quickly need math to do anything beyond the very basics.

I also agree that in the end I think ShaderFX might have gone a bit to off the deep-end with the technical stuff by exposing every tiny thing. Some love it, but for pure artists its become too technical.

gnoop

It's not that I don't want to do anything with math at all.   Imo old  Max plugin just had a nicer  balance.     After all  I don't want to code all those  modern physical shaders  with energy conservation etc on my own.   I just want to make some specific  layers blending , Z depth combine  and  texture animation and show it HLSL programmer.    But can't even find any useful info in 3ds max help system   while with old plugin I just borrowed groups of nodes  from lots of examples.  

What's bother me now is that  with 3dmax2017 I can't edit  blending values and see  result immediately . I see first  some checker texture  for a second.  It wasn't that bad with old plugin as I remember it and in Blender ,in comparision,  GLSL mode works with a speed of light with its nodes.  I especially love its "M" node bypass  an how I can output any grayscale or color node combination to anything,   including output node directly to see exactly what certain combination does visually at any flow stage. 

Too bad  programmer says he don't understand what Blender nodes do  till I find and point him an exact parts of source code which in turn just abracadabra for me.

Eric Chadwick

UE4's material editor is nice.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/Editor/

Shader Forge in Unity is nice.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/14147

Amplify Shader Editor in Unity is nice 
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/68570

gnoop

Thanks, Eric .   U4 one is nice but  not that much interactive beyond shaderball from what I tried a year ago or so.   And too engine specific.  .   No bypass command I found or baking a branch back to a texture .    What about those two others.     We use neither U4 nor Unity, although all engines are very close now.

kodde

shaderfx> Are you referring to the current ShaderFX for Maya/Max being "a bit to off the deep-end with the technical stuff"? Please don't ever dumb it down and remove access to all the low level stuff. It's what makes it awesome!

gnoop

I don't offer to dumb it down,  It's cool it has all those advanced feature.  Let them be in advanced mode.  Why it always should be a choice  in between  easy and conveniences for an artist  and  so-called  "flexibility" .   Why not both?      
Even in Houdini they started to offer actual  tools, simple to use like a hammer , not just a big construction sandbox  aka   "lay programmer  off and do your own tools first"    

shaderfx

regarding the checker pattern:

if you add a "Material Variable" node in StringrayPBS or a float-node witg "expose as material input', it should update without having to recompile (which causes the checker).

also check shaderfx.com for tutorials by Kodde and others.
And use the Maya shaderfx help pages (online), they are much better then the Max ones and most of it is the same.

@Kodde: dont worry. No plans to remove the fun stuff

gnoop

Thanks for the tips, now I see it could work interactively.    
  Still it's pretty inconvenient   with necessity to switch windows  imo.  

Also I am curious about Stingray . It looks like having PBR output material pretty close to our own.    I wonder if it's possible to export  HLSL code form ShaderFX  the way a programmer could adapt it  to any other engine or borrow  some part at least?  I remember old plugin could do it?    In a word is it useful for anything beyond Stingrey game engine? 

ps.  One more question : Is it possible to bake some node based tweaking  back to textures  in Shader FX  somehow?