Nothing changed with the Normal Maps, the shaders and how they 'worked' with the viewport have been fielded with, hence breaking with the Normal Maps and such with them.
Could you be more specific? I checked:
- Viewport configuration > Lighting and Shadows tab
- Customize > Preferences > Viewport
- Right-clicking on [+][Perspective]U]Smooth+Highlight[/U
No result: I don't think it is a setting, it is the way 2013 is displaying the normal map: wrong.
It's broken, every single shader out there has this problem(mine, 3point, etc). It looks like Autodesk has actually broken tangent space for Direct3D, as it doesn't even work with their own DX display of normalmaps.
I'm going to try and reach someone at Autodesk because it's well possible they're not even aware of this issue.
You probably know this already but they switched on gamma correction by default and it "corrects" normal maps which causes all kinds of problems. So first make sure you turn off Gamma/LUT (Main Menu > Rendering > Gamma/LUT > Uncheck enable).
It sounds like they have fubar'ed something else but enabling Gamma/LUT without excluding important materials like Normal Map was just one thing in a long list of bone headed moves they made in 2013 that also has to be worked around.
Nothing changed with the Normal Maps, the shaders and how they 'worked' with the viewport have been fielded with, hence breaking with the Normal Maps and such with them.
Sure, yeah I meant that I hadn't noticed anything different when viewing normal maps with the Xoliul shader in Max 2013. I even debated adding the use of the shader into my original post but didn't as I thought it would be self evident given the topic and discussion of everything else.
Like I said I'm spamming Autodesk. Each time 3DsMax is crashing I'm actually filling in the Error Report window and complaining about this normal map issue.
Someone willing to test this wall of text and see if it is possible to get it working all the time, or working at all?
-> Tested on a plane that was split in half, then made an angle almost 90 degrees, SM split and UV split between the two quads
Okay, so I heard from some people that laurens had said to not only disable gamma/lut, but also put it to 1.0.
(if laurens said this or not, I am not sure, just in case he did, and this fixes it, it's his find)
But that has always been the case for me.
So what I found after some testing:
Set that as said above.
if that doesn't fix it:
-Open a file, load a mesh/make a new one, doesn't matter just a model with a normal map where it is obvious if it's working or not.
-Open xoliul shader, load the normal map, it's probably still gonna have a seam.
-Put Gamma/lut ON but keep it to 1.0
-Load a "new" xoliulshader in a new slot, and load your normal map in again.
(and maybe play with the flip green channel a couple of times, since I always have to do this this might be needed)
If that doesn't fix it yet, close the file (reset max, and if that doesn't work close and reopen max)
Re open the file, and see if it is fixed, if not load a new xoliulshader in a new slot.
Basicly with Gamma/lut set to 1.0 toggle it on/off a couple off times + (maybe play with flip green a couple of times).
In this way I can actually get it working all the time (in the few times I tested it, and if I am correct), altough it takes like a minute more of clicking.
Interesting note: I always ended up with Gamma/lut ON, but set to 1.0
EDIT:
Once it's working, don't load a new xoliulshader, that breaks it again, and you will have to go trough the whole toggle it on/off, restart max thing.
Autodesk is no longer properly passing Tangents and Binormals to shaders. They're just passing garbage data (not proper per-pixel/vertex data). So i made a special Max 2013 version that calculates the tangents in-shader. No idea how that matches up with baked tangents, but at least it's something
Could you be more specific? I checked:
- Viewport configuration > Lighting and Shadows tab
- Customize > Preferences > Viewport
- Right-clicking on [+][Perspective]U]Smooth+Highlight[/U
No result: I don't think it is a setting, it is the way 2013 is displaying the normal map: wrong.
You can disable and enable highlights in Viewport configuration > Lighting and Shadows tab but it depends witch driver you use to i think.
It definitely looks better than before.. some of the seams I had disappeared, some are still there and shading is still funny in spots, so again - Autodesk, why? Why would you just change it around for no appreciatable gain?
All talking about Max, but whats with Maya?
Max has the 3PointShader, Maya has nothing, just a subscription dx extension which doenst work for students
All talking about Max, but whats with Maya?
Max has the 3PointShader, Maya has nothing, just a subscription dx extension which doenst work for students
XouliulShader 2.0 for Maya 2012/2013?
If you take a look back, many people who are making the shaders for Max already know the language needed for the UI, they're not going to spend extra time (especially on pet projects on which they don't really make money) in making a shader UI for another software.
However, Maya does have plenty of shader, I think the BRDF shader was originally Maya, you also have the X1 shader, and a few others like Leo (Chronic) and Kost (Kodde) also make Maya shaders.
Hello everyone!
Can someone explain me how to create animated material with XoliulShader? For example a boosters fires which Xoliul created for his GZ81 scene. Any link, tutorial will be very useful and greatly appreciated! Thanks.
That was done in UDK IIRC, you cannot animate materials in X2 right off the bat (since they don't support vertex distortion, flipbooks, etc).
You could maybe blend several version of shader using one of the blending modes in Max? Each one using a different texture? But that would take far too long and would not be worth it.
Thank you very much for help! I need an advice with my issue, I have environment scene which contains torches and I want animated fire for them. How can I accomplish this task in 3ds max (I have a sequence of textures for my fire)? Example picture of my scene:
*Just read the entire thread, looking for solution*
When I disable SSAO my frames drop drastically(20fps becomes 10fps)
,With other scenes performance drops like it should (it's just a model 500k, a ground plane and 2 reference planes, deleting them doesn't help)
Max 2012x64 and a GTX480 with some newish drivers 306.23 on win 7
Another thing, I thought ssao wasn't supposed to work at all with this shader?, it displays fine for me as long as I have transparency set to anything other than none.
Thanks a lot Ace-Angel for helping me with fire!:) I'm still trying to improve my scene, so now I'm want create fog effect for it. Can someone give me a hint how can I do this for render scene in viewport with Xoliul's shader? So this is possible?
Scruples: erm, that beats me. There's always tons of strange things going on behind the scenes with Max and drivers, I really can't help much there. Autodesk doesn't care too much, as they're mainly focusing on Nitrous it seems.
SSAO isn't tied directly to the shader, it's a post effect. I never claimed it doesn't work, but you have noticed as well that it needs a setting on the shader prefers off.
Elonir: I really suggest you switch to UDK, my shader is meant for a few separate props, if you want to do a big scene with effects and all you won't get very far unless you're able to write shaders yourself..
Xoliul: Thanks for an advice, but UDK - it's not a good solution in my case! Because for me, character model is main figure of my environment, all other stuff it's only a background. My goal is to render my character! After your advice I've tried to work with UDK and for some reason I have terrible results with mesh seams, lighting or normal maps issue maybe, I'm searching over Internet for some time and haven't found solution for my issue. So thank you very, very much for your amazing shader!:)
Since i didnt get a reply on my thread i thought i will try here..
Im trying to get alpha map hair working using the Xoliul Shader in 3ds max.
When I import my mesh and turn alpha on in the settings it gives me something weird.
This was with soft shadows in the perferences on, but then i then changed it to hard shadows and it gave me this result as seen below.
Its close but as you can see, you can see the actual geometry of the hair like you can see the planes which is most notable at the top they are reflecting. Its not 100% transparent, maybe like 80%
Just wondering has xoliul always been like that, or is it a bug. Seems like when i use hardware shading it doesnt like it and i tried using the clipping feature as well in xoilul but doesnt help either. Im using max 2011 btw
I've tried to work with UDK and for some reason I have terrible results with mesh seams, lighting or normal maps issue maybe, I'm searching over Internet for some time and haven't found solution for my issue. So thank you very, very much for your amazing shader!:)
Can you post screenshots of the issues? Most new people have think they have issues with normal maps in UDK but it's usually just a flipped green channel in their normal map.
KungFoo Lai, hair is just something that will never work great unless Autodesk improves things. Did you read the help section about it ? (the shader comes with a CHM help file)
Hey there, I've been using Xoliul shader for a little while now and I have to say it's a handy tool, especially when you're shooting for something specific like a TF2 feel to your asset. I have a question though. The shader itself has been working fantastic, but as of recent, I've had a problem with applying a Xoliul material to my object. It seems that, whenever I apply the material and I move about the viewport, the shadows and highlights flicker. Now at first I thought maybe I had another lights conflicting with one another, but there were no lights created. I also tried maybe messing with the viewport lighting settings, but it did not fix it. I do remember having a GPU driver update recently, and I only noticed this problem after that. Any idea what this might be caused by?
I can never get this to work in 2013, it says it installs, but even after restart it won't show up in my shader list. Then I try to uninstall it and max crashes. So after that I go and try uninstalling it, well when I do that, I can't install it without the "cannot install" error.
So I manually install. Still won't show up:/
Have you read the previous posts on manually installing ? All it takes to show up in the list, is having the xoliulshader_startup.ms in scripts/startup.
Juraiknight: this is just a Max driver thing. It depends on your graphics card, drivers, etc. I provide one small piece in the whole viewport display, but most of it is outside of my control.
Have you read the previous posts on manually installing ? All it takes to show up in the list, is having the xoliulshader_startup.ms in scripts/startup.
Juraiknight: this is just a Max driver thing. It depends on your graphics card, drivers, etc. I provide one small piece in the whole viewport display, but most of it is outside of my control.
Yes, I've manually installed it many times, it makes no difference.
I've never heard of this happening before with a manual install. If it happens it's mostly because admin rights prevented the install from completing correctly.
You can try to simply do Run Script on the XoliulShader.ms main script. That should add it to the list. If it doesnt, open the max script listener, see if it gives you an error.
Please think about it (maybe you are planning some updates ) not only as a shader for 1 model rendered for portfolio but also as a shader for work, shader witch shows\reveals bugs on maps and gives similar results to the engine. Kind of 'model viewer' inside 3ds max.
I've never heard of this happening before with a manual install. If it happens it's mostly because admin rights prevented the install from completing correctly.
You can try to simply do Run Script on the XoliulShader.ms main script. That should add it to the list. If it doesnt, open the max script listener, see if it gives you an error.
It added it to the list but as soon as I drag it into my slate it does this.
and after I close the errors I get this issue when I apply it.
Load up a DirectX material, and for the shader, go to the max2013 folder and load up the "Xoliulshader_2.0_2013.fx" file.
and see if it's the same if you do it that way.
Since in my install (can't seem to get it fixed) it keeps defaulting to the standard one, and not the 2013 with the fixes for max2013, and maybe a bit of a longshot, but maybe that's also the case with yours.
Hi, all! I ran into this error:
Installed according to the instructions. I have installed Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 32bit. Latest updates are. Please help with this problem.
Replies
Could you be more specific? I checked:
- Viewport configuration > Lighting and Shadows tab
- Customize > Preferences > Viewport
- Right-clicking on [+][Perspective]U]Smooth+Highlight[/U
No result: I don't think it is a setting, it is the way 2013 is displaying the normal map: wrong.
It sounds like they have fubar'ed something else but enabling Gamma/LUT without excluding important materials like Normal Map was just one thing in a long list of bone headed moves they made in 2013 that also has to be worked around.
Also a few people have managed to get them to display properly after toggling Gamma/LUT on and off but its very hit and miss and more likely a bug...
http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-3ds-max/autodesk-3ds-max--3ds-max-design-2012/normal-tangets-seams-and-gammalut/
Sure, yeah I meant that I hadn't noticed anything different when viewing normal maps with the Xoliul shader in Max 2013. I even debated adding the use of the shader into my original post but didn't as I thought it would be self evident given the topic and discussion of everything else.
Edit: Haha, which is actually you, r-a-n-d-o-m. I am an idiot ;-)
-> Tested on a plane that was split in half, then made an angle almost 90 degrees, SM split and UV split between the two quads
Okay, so I heard from some people that laurens had said to not only disable gamma/lut, but also put it to 1.0.
(if laurens said this or not, I am not sure, just in case he did, and this fixes it, it's his find)
But that has always been the case for me.
So what I found after some testing:
Set that as said above.
if that doesn't fix it:
-Open a file, load a mesh/make a new one, doesn't matter just a model with a normal map where it is obvious if it's working or not.
-Open xoliul shader, load the normal map, it's probably still gonna have a seam.
-Put Gamma/lut ON but keep it to 1.0
-Load a "new" xoliulshader in a new slot, and load your normal map in again.
(and maybe play with the flip green channel a couple of times, since I always have to do this this might be needed)
If that doesn't fix it yet, close the file (reset max, and if that doesn't work close and reopen max)
Re open the file, and see if it is fixed, if not load a new xoliulshader in a new slot.
Basicly with Gamma/lut set to 1.0 toggle it on/off a couple off times + (maybe play with flip green a couple of times).
In this way I can actually get it working all the time (in the few times I tested it, and if I am correct), altough it takes like a minute more of clicking.
Interesting note: I always ended up with Gamma/lut ON, but set to 1.0
EDIT:
Once it's working, don't load a new xoliulshader, that breaks it again, and you will have to go trough the whole toggle it on/off, restart max thing.
new shader version up here: http://www.laurenscorijn.com/xoliulshader
technical info:
Autodesk is no longer properly passing Tangents and Binormals to shaders. They're just passing garbage data (not proper per-pixel/vertex data). So i made a special Max 2013 version that calculates the tangents in-shader. No idea how that matches up with baked tangents, but at least it's something
You can disable and enable highlights in Viewport configuration > Lighting and Shadows tab but it depends witch driver you use to i think.
thx Xoliul
Either way, thanks a lot Xoliul!
Max has the 3PointShader, Maya has nothing, just a subscription dx extension which doenst work for students
XouliulShader 2.0 for Maya 2012/2013?
However, Maya does have plenty of shader, I think the BRDF shader was originally Maya, you also have the X1 shader, and a few others like Leo (Chronic) and Kost (Kodde) also make Maya shaders.
Seriously, just use google.
Can i implent normal, spec and diffuse in them?
Can someone explain me how to create animated material with XoliulShader? For example a boosters fires which Xoliul created for his GZ81 scene. Any link, tutorial will be very useful and greatly appreciated! Thanks.
You could maybe blend several version of shader using one of the blending modes in Max? Each one using a different texture? But that would take far too long and would not be worth it.
When I disable SSAO my frames drop drastically(20fps becomes 10fps)
,With other scenes performance drops like it should (it's just a model 500k, a ground plane and 2 reference planes, deleting them doesn't help)
Max 2012x64 and a GTX480 with some newish drivers 306.23 on win 7
Another thing, I thought ssao wasn't supposed to work at all with this shader?, it displays fine for me as long as I have transparency set to anything other than none.
SSAO isn't tied directly to the shader, it's a post effect. I never claimed it doesn't work, but you have noticed as well that it needs a setting on the shader prefers off.
Elonir: I really suggest you switch to UDK, my shader is meant for a few separate props, if you want to do a big scene with effects and all you won't get very far unless you're able to write shaders yourself..
when i tried to download xoliulshader in main website, " .mzp " file
is not there .
if u find this file plz post the link
Im trying to get alpha map hair working using the Xoliul Shader in 3ds max.
When I import my mesh and turn alpha on in the settings it gives me something weird.
This was with soft shadows in the perferences on, but then i then changed it to hard shadows and it gave me this result as seen below.
Its close but as you can see, you can see the actual geometry of the hair like you can see the planes which is most notable at the top they are reflecting. Its not 100% transparent, maybe like 80%
Just wondering has xoliul always been like that, or is it a bug. Seems like when i use hardware shading it doesnt like it and i tried using the clipping feature as well in xoilul but doesnt help either. Im using max 2011 btw
Better pic of what im talking about,
Can you post screenshots of the issues? Most new people have think they have issues with normal maps in UDK but it's usually just a flipped green channel in their normal map.
Here's a list with links to most most of the mentioned shaders and a few more.
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryShaders
So I manually install. Still won't show up:/
Juraiknight: this is just a Max driver thing. It depends on your graphics card, drivers, etc. I provide one small piece in the whole viewport display, but most of it is outside of my control.
Yes, I've manually installed it many times, it makes no difference.
You can try to simply do Run Script on the XoliulShader.ms main script. That should add it to the list. If it doesnt, open the max script listener, see if it gives you an error.
I'm using your shader almost every day
Please think about it (maybe you are planning some updates ) not only as a shader for 1 model rendered for portfolio but also as a shader for work, shader witch shows\reveals bugs on maps and gives similar results to the engine. Kind of 'model viewer' inside 3ds max.
Thanks again!
It added it to the list but as soon as I drag it into my slate it does this.
and after I close the errors I get this issue when I apply it.
Load up a DirectX material, and for the shader, go to the max2013 folder and load up the "Xoliulshader_2.0_2013.fx" file.
and see if it's the same if you do it that way.
Since in my install (can't seem to get it fixed) it keeps defaulting to the standard one, and not the 2013 with the fixes for max2013, and maybe a bit of a longshot, but maybe that's also the case with yours.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1735929&postcount=500
3dsmax/maps/fx
(and if they are not copy them from the scripts/xoliul folder)
That there are also 3 fx files there (xoliulshader_2.0 and the max2009/2013 fx files).
I was doing some stuff yesterday and I had a similar problem, and that ended up due to not having the 2013 fx file there.
btw:
www.viewportshader.com
I got the site back. Xoliulshader.com is in domain purgatory and locked for another half year, so this will have to do.
Site is not done yet, I'm putting stuff back when I have time.
Installed according to the instructions. I have installed Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 32bit. Latest updates are. Please help with this problem.