Help me create this "simple" Maya shader please :-(

4d4d

Hello Poly people,

I am struggling to create what I think would be a simple Maya shader. I would greatly appreciate if you could give me some pointers or better still create the shader so I could see how you did it :shifty:

Imagine a surface with red Mia_car_paint_phen_x on it (with the flakes). Then on top of it is a sticker called "TEST". Importantly the sticker has to be of chrome material and without any flakes in it. Like in real world if a chrome sticker was placed on on top of mia car paint surface.

To better understand what I mean look at the attached Photoshop mock-up of how the final result should look like-



I tried using mia_car_paint_phen and then mia_material_x with the chrome preset. I am failing miserably to combine the two to create what I am after.

How would you do it?

I am attaching an alpha image if someone wants to help and try making the TEST shader-



Thanks for your time.

MikeF

i'd use a layered shader.
Here's a good tutorial

http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=5&vid=1768

edit:That might be a subscribers only video, but just googling layered shader should yield good results

chronic

blend colors node
pipe shader outputs into the color slots - your b/w mask into the blender slot
pipe blendColors output into a surface shader

4d4d

MikeF wrote: »

i'd use a layered shader.
Here's a good tutorial

http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=5&vid=1768

edit:That might be a subscribers only video, but just googling layered shader should yield good results

I did Google but found mainly old stuff. The DT one looks promising. Thanks for that. I will get it if I keep failing.

chronic wrote: »

blend colors node
pipe shader outputs into the color slots - your b/w mask into the blender slot
pipe blendColors output into a surface shader

I tried what you said but not having any luck. Are you sure your method will work? I will continue testing but so far with your method I am getting pure black object or red object on rendering. Although in the viewport I see red TEST text.

When you say shader output. What do you mean by that? Connection editor opens when I try to connect car paint phen into Colour 1 slot of Blend Colour Attribute. Do you mean base colour of car pain phen? Please could you make it more clear for non tech noob like me?

4d4d

Got it working I think.

chronic

mi_car_paint_phen_x.result > blendColors.color1
mia_material_x.result > blendColors.color2
file.outColorR > blendColors.blender

blendColors.output > surfaceShader.outcolor

you might need to swap color1 and 2 or invert your mask
i usualy dont use a surfaceShader as my end node instead i use a lambert with diffuse set to 0, color set to 0 and pipe the blendColors (or other network) into Incandescene - for some reason this seems to work better

4d4d

Thanks chronic I had worked out the "RESULT" part by testing :-) I should have waited for your second reply LOL Flake is showing on top of the chrome sticker currently though. Will have to mess with the mask and should be good to go. Will try your Lambert method later too.


Another question- If I now wanted to put some say dirt on top and also a bump map to match that dirt then how would I go about that? Would I add that to the Lambert bump slot?

Also is there something simple and similar to Blend Color node that can take more than two colours?

Btw Chronic you have been awesome! :thumbup:

Test result currently-

4d4d

Testing the sticker Bump-

chronic

if you want more than 2 layers, you can daisy chain the blend color nodes, but a better solution is to use the mix8layer custom mental ray shader

i don't know why the flakes are showing through, would take some experimentation to figure it out

seems like you are figuring this stuff out on your own though, which is great.