What sort of shader could win this contest?

Rob Galanakis

I just saw this contest at GDNET:
http://www.gamedev.net/community/contest/shadeyourworld/

I'm sort of burnt out for "cool surface" shader ideas. Unfortunately I've lost 20 days already, but I think I could pump something out in just over a week. I just am not sure what to do for my shader... I can do a skin shader, or a higher-quality version of my eye shader on my website, or something really wacky.

I always have issues with carte-blanche negative liberty when trying to come up with ideas, I know you guys are killer artists and I'm sure you've created some model or character where you said "wow this surface would look really cool with this certain shader" or you've seen a surface in a film and said "wow I wish we could do that in real-time," now is the time to relay those ideas.

Thanks for any suggestions.

gauss

sorry, but my first suggestion is going to be to move this thread if you don't have something to pimp. them's the rules! doesn't take much... get a model shot or something posted, or some kind of prelim of what you've been working on... otherwise i'm moving this to GD. or worse.

my second suggestion is to look into something other than the most obvious shaders--skin, metal, and the like--but just nail the hell out of it. something a bit more specifically targeted, but if you can get it right, then that's what you should go for in this contest.

Vailias

Lots of people are going to be going for realism I immagine. Shoot for something with lots of style. And thanks for this. I might be able to enter it.. if my card can run the software, as I have a shader I need to build anyway.

aesir

a pixar shader. makes things like they're from a pixar movie.

Keg

That or a tf2 style shader

Illusions

Perhaps something procedural and complex. Either that or something tough. By complex I mean like (this is only an example) a shader that has both grass, rock, snow, and a paved road all generated procedurally and realistically. Be inventive. There are probably going to be a ton of glass, ice, and skin shaders. Pull out something unique.

Ged

what about a metal procedural that automatically makes non-uniform scratches along the edges of objects and also adds random small dents and dust? that could be really useful...though Im not sure how you would define which edges get the scratches and which dont

vahl

what illusions said, but rather than random, I'd say controlled by vertexcolor, green=grass, red=rock, blue=dirt, water, snow, alpha=paved road, something like that

raydog

How about a hair shader.

JKMakowka

What about something that emulates the translucenty of tree leaves when the sunlight shines through them? With leaf rim lights and all that.

Rob Galanakis

gauss: my intention is to post shots of the shader here as I work, sorry I didn't make that clear. Or maybe you should move this to 2D discussions? I don't know (just please not the trash!), but I thought this the best place.

Everyone else, thanks for the ideas, I'll try and come to a decision tonight.

gauss

a pimp's a pimp, and you just don't have any content. so yes, i'm moving this to 2d/3d... post this thread again when you've got something to show.

Rob Galanakis

You REALLY need to download the video to see the shader since its all animated.

http://www.robg3d.com/downloads/shader.avi

I need to tweak it still, adjust the colors and timing a bit, and some of the scales, multipliers, variables, etc. I think I've taken it as far as I can (maybe too far), curious what people think and for suggestions. Thanks.

Oh and ideas for the seams would be appreciated, I can re-UV it no problem if needed, but I'll probably end up covering it up with some geometry since seams are seams...

Keg

It seems to be a bunch of random effects layered on top of each other. I can't see a use for the effect right now.

As for the seams I'd say most probable use for this effect might be a computer screen and those generally are flat or curved

Rob Galanakis

Care to elaborate? I need to tweak everything some to highlight and repress some effects and colors. Yes the effects are layered but they are far from random, I'm curious what you find random about it.

EDIT: Meh the video seems to be playing some tricks with it... running at 30 FPS it seems 100 times better, I'm going to tweak it and I'll upload a better video (maybe a quicktime since I have better luck with them at high qualities).

Joseph Silverman

I aggree with Keg, I really have absolutely no idea what this shader is supposed to be used for. Lots of neat effects, but I can't think of a single situation one would ever want to use this shader on a 3d model, aside from trying to make a sphere look cool.

Vailias

I tend to agree. I realize the effects aren't random, but its a very... bluematrix effect. I mean the scrolling codetext is totally matrix, just red, combined with the lightning storm effects and the subtle blue shield like glow its feels cobbled together for a "hey cool sci-fi!" feel.

While its interesting I see it as such a special purpose effect thing that it's not going to turn heads and win this kinda contest.
other questions: how much of this is procedural? is the lighting?

Personally I'd remove the matrixy code and turn this into an electrical/plasma shader with a number of customizable settings. That would make it both cool and useful to a large number of situations.

Penzer

[ QUOTE ]
Care to elaborate? I need to tweak everything some to highlight and repress some effects and colors. Yes the effects are layered but they are far from random, I'm curious what you find random about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think what he means is, what would you call that shader? Obviously you very specifically created this shader, you didn't just randomly press buttons. Think what exactly you would use the shader for. You've got matrix style text moving at different speeds, a surface that looks fluidic up close and some crazy energy flashes going on. Obviously it looks pretty cool, I know I'd be impressed if I saw that in a game, but just seeing it used like that on a head just seems random.... even though the contest is about the shader , not on now what you use it on. Are you allowed to create a small prop to use the shader on, or do you need to use their contest models?

If it were on some sort of future-seeing crystal/orb, or maybe a cat, it would attain higher levels of sense-making awesomeness. Something that says "this what you use this shader for". Either way, good luck, looks cool

Slipstream

Text pouring from the top of the head kinda of gave me the feeling the momentary feeling that it was blood flowing down the face.

Rob Galanakis

My goal was to create a cool looking shader (main judgment criteria is "Aesthetics: Does it look cool?"). You get to a point in a no-man's land writing shaders where you have to do something more complex than the generic shaders out there that cover 99% of all surfaces with minor variations, but aren't mathematical enough to really invent new techniques, and there's no application-side programming involved which rules out most of the cool new "shader" techniques you see, everything is done in the vertex and pixel programs here.

As far as appearance goes, yes, quite literally this is an "effect shader," this isn't an art contest and the focus is making a cool looking shader. Tacky, gimmicky, who cares, it just needs to look cool.

Anyway based on the crits the main problem seems to be the matrix-effect... here's a video of it without.

http://www.robg3d.com/downloads/shaderNoLight.mov

I don't want to get rid of it as it needs the compliment and contrast, but I will sharpen it up and tone it down. Valias I'll also take your suggestion and think about turning it into an electrical/plasma shader, maybe in addition to this one... I'm thinking with the 3D noise I have I may be able to get some procedural "static ball" effects, its something I'll need to think about and experiment pretty hard.
The lightining isn't procedural but the fact that you had to ask means the illusion is working correctly... many of my shaders I pull apart channels in an RGBA map and modulate with a color or use them as masks, you can come up with many interesting techniques for cheap this way (matrix text is done a similar way, its just one RGB map). Anyway, "filter" functions like this are hard (and pretty inefficient) to do in a shader, but its worth more investigation probably.

Penzer: Any prop suggestion is very welcome. For some reason I thought a head would be cool, not sure what I was watching that would make me thinking that, but a prop suggestion for what this could better be used on would be much appreciated.

oobersli

I think if ya could make a mask to focus some of the effects more towards the eyes and what not would be cool to see. Maybe make the effect more prominent towards the eyes and fades away as it gets farther fading into just plain ole skin?

Sage

Well if you want to make a shader like that I suggest you make it so it has a practical use to it. Why don't you turn that into some type of weather shader system that can simulate clouds, or stars. I was thinking an outer space shader that can be used to create skys and novas and that kind of stuff. You have the lightning fxs. That said I thought it would be cool to make a shader that simulates death, and decay on flesh, or one that can deform meshes so it looks like the character is mutating. I would look better on your head model and I don't think I have seen that. Have a mask that reveals different normal maps that make the model look like it's rotting. Not sure how you would do it but that's just a though. Great job on the shaders though, they look sweet though, I really liked that matrix fx. I think all you need to do is give them a purpose.

Alex