Post your FX files

poopinmymouth

So in max, if you have ticked "dx display of standard material" you can save out the shader as an FX file. It's simple, but not sure how many people have/do this. The display is much faster using an fx file than a dx display of standard material. So here is my shader I use for metallic objects.

3 lights
diffuse
normal
specular color
specular level
self illumination (respects the rgb of the illumination map)
reflection mask
environment map (doesn't have to be cubic, any image will work)
opacity

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/net/pcount/poopinmymouth_uber_shader.fx (right click to download, otherwise it might view as a txt file)

*edit* picture added by request of SEKneox


So if anyone has self made fx shaders, I figure this is a good thread to share em.

Joao Sapiro

eheh nice ! when the NDA lifts ill try to post the one i did for some chars i did.

CrazyButcher

lots of (non 3dsmax so) FX files here
http://developer.download.nvidia.com/shaderlibrary/webpages/shader_library.html

few own:
http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmaxFX

Rob Galanakis

Once my project finishes in a month or so, I'm going to release all of my shaders in a few different formats... 3ds-compliant FX, fxcomposer projects, OGRE materials, and ShaderFX files.

There's a whole bunch of stuff... two skin shaders, metallic/armour, eyes, hair, offset, 24 and 8 bit specular map w/ bump, velvet, vertex-RGBA texture blend (spec/diffuse/normal), and I'll probably end up writing a refraction/glass shader soon too, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

The problem is that most of them (especially the skin shaders and eye shader) use pretty specific pipeline textures... the skin texture, for example, only uses a 'traditional' diffuse, bump, and spec level map, the rest are various shader-specific maps (ambient occlusion, SSS, micro-normals, etc). But even if they are of little use to artists I'm sure some people will get some cool things from them for their own shaders and ideas.

Ben Cloward

Cool thread, poop!

I think most people are aware of the shaders that I've written (since they've been there for awhile) - but here's the link anyway:

http://www.bencloward.com/resources_shaders.shtml

And of course there's ShaderFX which allows you to create pretty much any shader you want using a simple node-based interface (no coding required) right inside Max. Here's a link to that:

http://www.lumonix.net/shaderfx.html

We're planning to release a new version in the next couple of weeks that has lots of cool new features - Perlin Noise, Relief Mapping, Refraction, Sub-surface Scattering, etc.

cyborgguineapig

Hey Poop, dunno if its an issue related with my graphics driver but for some odd reason whenever I apply your shader to an object in the viewport it vanishes from sight.

I don't get this issue when I use Ben Cloward's FX files...

MoP

Yep Ben, happens to me too - the whole object just disappears. Maybe it's because they've been generated in Max9 and I'm trying to use it in Max8?

Renaud Galand

I got the same "error", but it's finally working when all maps are applied. Cool shader Ben ! I'd just add a gloss_mask (not map) which would allow to make at least 2 "layers" (so 2 values to tweak directly in the shader instead of the single one you have now) of glossiness on the model (can be usefull in some case).

poopinmymouth

Yeah you have to have all maps applied before it will show up. (especially opacity map) I tried adding a glossiness map, but it didn't seem to respect it in the viewport, only the render. I'll try again. Glad you guys like it.

Illusions

Is there any possible way to export shader networks out of Maya in .fx format? Or at least a way to translate them out (since it appears from screenshots that maya's node based shaders are similar to other .fx program's node based shaders). If so I can share some pretty interesting ones I've made, like a pseudo-xray shader, ice, and some others.

cyborgguineapig

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah you have to have all maps applied before it will show up. (especially opacity map) I tried adding a glossiness map, but it didn't seem to respect it in the viewport, only the render. I'll try again. Glad you guys like it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are gloss maps even supported in the view port? I heard max doesn't support it? shrugs.

poopinmymouth

Updated first post to have a picture of the fx file for anyone wondering.

Ben Cloward

The Max viewport will support just about anything you can do in HLSL - so yes - you can do gloss maps no problem - you just have to have an FX file that supports it. Gloss maps are very simple.

Just as an example of how powerful shaders are in the Max viewport, here's a screen shot of a fire shader I created with the new Perlin Noise node in ShaderFX.



There are no textures applied here at all - it's all a procedurally generated 3d volume of noise created by the shader. It works a lot like the 3d noise map in Max's software renderer, except it runs in real-time in the viewport. It also animates like fire does. That's hard to show in a screen shot so here's a sample Max file together with the shader that you can play around with: ShaderFX Perlin Fire

To run the sample file, you'll need a graphics card that supports shader model 3 as well as 3ds Max 8 or higher.

This is one example of the new features that will be available in ShaderFX 1.5 when we release it in a couple of weeks.

Pedro Amorim

pretty cool to make lava levels
lol
why does every cartony plataform game has a lava level?
lol

edit: why does my teapot looks 1/4 good?

Ben Cloward

Interesting. What type of video card do you have?

Anyone else seeing that problem?

Jaco

I'm seeing the same problem, I've got a 8800GTS.
I get the problem in max 8 and 9? Strange

Renaud Galand

8800GTS and the same problem over here :] And it's working perfectly @ work on a geforce 7600 GT.

Miguelito

Great thread! Very useful as I want to get deeper into that whole shader thing.
I have one question:
I want to do something like a cornea shader. So I need low opacity but high spec/glossiness. I made a standard material with a reflection map and pushed the glossiness and specular values. When I render that it looks fine - I have the low opacity but high glossiness or specular.
But if I make an fx-file out of that, the specular highlights get counted into the low opacity!
Is there some way to get around this?

Thx guys

CrazyButcher

sounds like a shader someone asked for already once, I did the "simple glass" http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmaxFX
for him, might serve your needs, too.

Miguelito

hm nice one! thats definitely useful! now , all i need is a reflection map slot

pior

And it's awesome! Thanks again for taking the time to do it last time CB!

Miguelito

hm but im having a problem here. the highlights arent on the position where I would expect them. Instead there is the rim. Actually I need it the other way round .

Thx again

Pedro Amorim

i also have a 8800 GTS

Ben Cloward

Thanks a lot for the feedback on my Perlin Fire shader. If anyone else has a "it doesn't work on my card" post to make, please email me instead of posting it here. My address is ben at bencloward dot com. I didn't mean to hijack poop's cool thread on FX shaders with a bunch of trouble shooting (sorry poop!). So far it looks like the problem is only occurring on the 8800 series and that 7900 and 6800 are fine. That's very helpful to know and I'll see if I can figure it out based on that.

Miguelito, did you see the eyeball shader that I posted on CgTalk here?:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2415390&postcount=21
Not sure if that's exactly what you're looking for, but it might help.

So - anyone else have cool FX files they'd like to share?