as it stands, i would agree. the various display shaders (ink etc.) are nice, but not really all that useful. performance-wise i felt it to be an improvement, however i didn't check fps stats or anything..
What? It's weird you guys are having issues with Nitrous. I remember I had a few when max2012 was released, but with the latest hotfix I can say with 100% sure, I never want to use D3D again, especially for High Poly modeling, with Nitrous I can now have 20mil polys on the screen and my max doesn't die.
(Even tho, I am still forced to use D3D now and then to use viewport shaders like Xoliul's or 3ps, but for HP stuff, Nitrous is where the wins at)
Nitrous bottlnecks the speed at which it renders/updates so it's smoother to play around in with higher polies. At around 8M, you can still drag the screen around without having to drag your mouse all the way to the end of the world before seeing any change and waiting another couple of seconds to recache the mesh.
Nitrous is powerful and much faster to respond granted you have the system for it, but considering how they screwed up the Gamma, sometimes have the display shader turn back into something different occasionally (Realistic mostly vs. shaded), and weird method of determining the Mipmaps and quality of textures, some could say Nitrous is rough around the edges.
It's not so much as the problem of the Nitrous as it's the problem of the bugs surrounding it which drown it's potential.
Looks awesome! Is there a feature like quality normals like in 3pointlight shader? Thats the only thing that bugs me. Except that looks amazing... even without quality normals will be using this more often than 3ps.
Thanks dudes. as i said in the other thread, still waiting for Hamish to put it on the frontpage.
Ace: in that aspect: It's going to be free and unencrypted!
For quality normals, I'm including a toggle script for Max 2011 and 2012, to help make them easier to enable. As for a modifier, no, we don't really have the resources to do that. 3point modifier might work in some cases though (as an unintentional byproduct of a 3DS Max bug).
edit: It's funny how many people like Quickload so much. We almost cut that feature I'm personally more excited about Presets, they save you even more time and pretty much equal the "make awesome button"
Well, if I can learn from you guys and the setup for quick-load, it would help with my vertex blende shader, which has about 3 textures per channel, fnar fnar, so much appreciated for that.
@Ace-Angel : I would be happy if I could help. You can always email me with questions.
When we release the code and had the chance to look at the code. Let me know if you need more comments in the code or not.
Just wanted to drop in and say thanks again for the awesome work you guys are doing. Use your shader every day, 100% indispensable. Now after reading about v2 i can't wait
It's always been in there. There were two ways to do it even, set SI on and turn the global SI level to 100 (cut in new version), or just set ambient light to white and turn off all omni's.
But this just shows me that I need to implement a preset that does this for you. One click and done
Luke: I don't know if that would work as you'd expect it. You'd need to have the shader open on the material you want to toggle, and it would only work for that one material sphere. A global hotkey for all shader instances is not possible I think. Isn't it easier then to switch to flat shaded mode ?
Quickload looks very awesome and it's a pretty genius idea. my only concern is with it work with suffixes as well? because that's how i'm used to naming my textures (although this may force me to be more organized :P)
Hey Xoliul, great to hear about V2 on its way.
Just a quick question, is it just me or is the masked transparency broken in 2010? I just get a black material.
Well ... Max is Maxscript, Maya is MEL, a different language. Also this side of linking a UI to a shader is very technical and complex, we'd have to redo a ton of things. And as said in the interview, the Max version took almost half a year to code.
I will however release the core 2.0fx file for Maya, so you can at least use the updated version.
Hey Xoluil,
I've been using your shader for quite a while, but when I do, I always import a .psd for the diffuse map. Problem is, that it makes everything really dark compared to using the .jpeg (which uses the real colors)
Example:
Using a .psd
Using a Jpeg
Texture here
So basically I want to use a psd so I can edit my texture and work back and forth between 3ds max, and photoshop.
Thanks.
Wailingmonkey .. yeah i feel a bit sorry saying that, but Max is my app, and Maya is just not as good with shaders as Max. Tbh, I don't even know if it's technically possible to do this same thing in MEL since you need script support for accessing shaders. In Max it was already an ill-documented, hidden feature.
I wouldn't really recommend PSD's, BenHenry. I never use them even when i go back and forth, they're just a tad too heavy. I frequently had Max crash when working with 2048 PSD's. You can just create an Action that saves to TGA, and then bind that to a hotkey even. There's Photoshop scripts that do that for you.
Other than PSD weirdness, it might be the alpha channel of your PSD, as JPG doesn't have alpha.
Btw, for TF2 dudes like you, v2 will include TF2 presets to mimic the look in a few seconds
Wailingmonkey .. yeah i feel a bit sorry saying that, but Max is my app, and Maya is just not as good with shaders as Max. Tbh, I don't even know if it's technically possible to do this same thing in MEL since you need script support for accessing shaders. In Max it was already an ill-documented, hidden feature.
I wouldn't really recommend PSD's, BenHenry. I never use them even when i go back and forth, they're just a tad too heavy. I frequently had Max crash when working with 2048 PSD's. You can just create an Action that saves to TGA, and then bind that to a hotkey even. There's Photoshop scripts that do that for you.
Other than PSD weirdness, it might be the alpha channel of your PSD, as JPG doesn't have alpha.
Btw, for TF2 dudes like you, v2 will include TF2 presets to mimic the look in a few seconds
Like we said, computer problems. Robbert-Jan only has an iPad atm, I have to turn in my work laptop in 2 hours or so and my desktop will be packed today or tomorrow for my moving.
We're just finishing up the site, little left to do, but it's in everybody's interest that documentation is finishied on release, otherwise we get the same questions a million times.
Replies
What? It's weird you guys are having issues with Nitrous. I remember I had a few when max2012 was released, but with the latest hotfix I can say with 100% sure, I never want to use D3D again, especially for High Poly modeling, with Nitrous I can now have 20mil polys on the screen and my max doesn't die.
(Even tho, I am still forced to use D3D now and then to use viewport shaders like Xoliul's or 3ps, but for HP stuff, Nitrous is where the wins at)
Nitrous is powerful and much faster to respond granted you have the system for it, but considering how they screwed up the Gamma, sometimes have the display shader turn back into something different occasionally (Realistic mostly vs. shaded), and weird method of determining the Mipmaps and quality of textures, some could say Nitrous is rough around the edges.
It's not so much as the problem of the Nitrous as it's the problem of the bugs surrounding it which drown it's potential.
/o/
Thanks for the kind words everybody.
Anyways kudos for the works guys, really top notch stuff. Are we able to study the interface later on if we want to? Or will it be encrypted?
Cheers!
Ace: in that aspect: It's going to be free and unencrypted!
For quality normals, I'm including a toggle script for Max 2011 and 2012, to help make them easier to enable. As for a modifier, no, we don't really have the resources to do that. 3point modifier might work in some cases though (as an unintentional byproduct of a 3DS Max bug).
edit: It's funny how many people like Quickload so much. We almost cut that feature
Plus, presets will be a nice addition ;p
http://area.autodesk.com/
@Ace-Angel : I would be happy if I could help. You can always email me with questions.
When we release the code and had the chance to look at the code. Let me know if you need more comments in the code or not.
But this just shows me that I need to implement a preset that does this for you. One click and done
No worries
Just a quick question, is it just me or is the masked transparency broken in 2010? I just get a black material.
Thanks!
But honestly, don't worry about v1.5 or 1.6 anymore, that version is almost a year old, v2 is different in so many ways.
Also: release will be this week
That's some great news ! Can't wait
things remain a bit behind still?
I will however release the core 2.0fx file for Maya, so you can at least use the updated version.
I've been using your shader for quite a while, but when I do, I always import a .psd for the diffuse map. Problem is, that it makes everything really dark compared to using the .jpeg (which uses the real colors)
Example:
Using a .psd
Using a Jpeg
Texture here
So basically I want to use a psd so I can edit my texture and work back and forth between 3ds max, and photoshop.
Thanks.
I wouldn't really recommend PSD's, BenHenry. I never use them even when i go back and forth, they're just a tad too heavy. I frequently had Max crash when working with 2048 PSD's. You can just create an Action that saves to TGA, and then bind that to a hotkey even. There's Photoshop scripts that do that for you.
Other than PSD weirdness, it might be the alpha channel of your PSD, as JPG doesn't have alpha.
Btw, for TF2 dudes like you, v2 will include TF2 presets to mimic the look in a few seconds
Dismembered, cheers!
Awesome Xoliul, sounds great!
you have to sign up to see the tutorial.
My laptop recently died so it will take some more days before release.
Keep up the good work ^^
We're just finishing up the site, little left to do, but it's in everybody's interest that documentation is finishied on release, otherwise we get the same questions a million times.
Refer to http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88289 from now on!