3point Shader
Pros:
- Quality Normals function (Edited this in )
- You essentially have 2 environment map slots. Pretty nice for blending cubemaps. You can have a cubemap that is better at solid reflections in one and the other one be the one that has your more interesting color or ambient lighting. I like using a custom studio cubemap built from an HDR for the reflections and then use either the cubemaps that come with 3point or elsewhere for color.
- Comes with cubemaps if you don't want to make your own.
- Organization and simplicity? Something about the setup in 3point pro version that just feels clean compact and sexy.
Cons:
- You have to pay for the User interface.
- I have issues with lights and settings sometimes. (I will get everything set just right and then randomly it will blow the scene out without the numbers changing. So I go in and have to reset everything to a really low number.)
- Only allowed 3 lights.
- Other cons involve lacking what Xoliul Shader has as Pros
Xoliul Shader (note: haven't worked with this as much because it fries my max due to having a really bad ATI model)
Pros:
- It is free (comes with UI)
- It has the ability to save presets including lights and material setup.
- Can tint your diffuse with a color picker in max (can use a mask with this)
- Hue and Saturation controls.
- 2 sided material option. < this is amazing.
Cons:
- You know before the big upgrade I thought I remember there being two environment map slots (ambient and reflect) but for some reason I couldn't find it in the new version. And like I said I didn't play around with it for very long. So this could be a ID10T Error.
- Only allowed 3 lights
- Not a big fan of the ui. Just feels a bit flashy and overboard to me. (I like compact sleek and sexy).
Marmoset
Pros: So MANY I can't name them all so I will name the main ones.
- Simplicity. OMG it can be so simple to set a model up. Sometimes it is nice to be able to throw a model in marmo and everything just function so quickly, and look good, without really any setup.
- Lights. You are not limited to the amount of lights you can have (I think I had almost 60 in a dungeon level I made.) And again SO SIMPLE!
- Skin Shader. Mmmm
- Height maps.
- DOF
- Bloom
- Video output!
- Proper wireframe setting.
- Ability to display separate passes.
Cons:
- not in max. lol
- being able to have a model in max gives you some interesting control.
- I would like to be able to load cubemaps into a slot. (need to research how to bring in custom environment maps in... Overall the process seems more complicated)
TO SUM IT ALL UP
If I had to suggest to someone what to go with I would say Marmoset is a must with one of the others. You might not want to buy 2 packages, so I would suggest spending your money on marmoset and download Xoliul Shader for free as you can get comparable results between it and 3point.
For the record... I have Marmoset and 3point. Reason was because Xoliul Shader was not as awesome as it was now when I initially bought 3point. Ultimately test both 3point and Xoliul on your setup and make sure they work because Xoliul's blows up my max 2012 in a number of ways. And when I saw the help file it pretty much said "Well if you are on an ATI and still experiencing lots of problems, maybe you should consider switching to a Nvidia." So that is kinda lame.
if i had to choose between marmoset and 3point shader i'd choose (well actually, i chose) 3point shader. even with the few cons it has, i prefer the control i have while in max, over the features of marmoset.
it's easier to adjust the pose of a model and so forth while getting a realtime response from the shader in the viewport than having to constantly export/import/check/go back/export/import etc.
lol yeah and the quality normals is an awesome feature. Edited that one in.
I tend to market to broke college kids because I am one, and I am surrounded by them. They always ask which I use and what they should get. And I tell them if they can spend the money on marmoset you can have that... the light version of 3point and Xoliul if you want and then really you have the best of everything.
I am broke now probably because I am spending all my money on little things like Marmoset, 3point, and Ndo2. I am really waiting to see what the 3point Shader 2 brings to the table!
I do agree with that control though. Believe I stated that in there. lol Having the ability to tweak in max on the fly is awesome.
Edit: Whenever I get some base textures started I tend to pull it up in 3point and marmoset and go with whichever looks better by default. There is something about loading a stylized/toony texture into marmoset that plays well with it. And 3point I find a lot easier to achieve more realistic results.
-if you have max 2011 with the hotfix or max 2012, you can use the official "qualified" normals fix with any compatible shader. both this and 3point's solutions look identical, but it's a true fix by autodesk rather than a bolt-on to max like 3point's modifier. xoliulshader supports this and lets you view normal maps the right way.
also, as far as i know, marmoset isn't synced to anything.
-the reason for a single cubemap slot in xoliulshader 2 is for simplicity. besides, i can't remember the last time i used separate ambient and reflection cubemaps.
-i beta tested xoliulshader extensively on a 4870 and it worked fine. ATI drivers are notoriously sketchy though so your mileage may vary.
but yeah, to sum it up, 3 point shader (paid) and xoliulshader 2 (free) are comparable in almost every way. IMO the 3point UI is better, but xoliulshader is free and has a decent UI too. marmoset is a separate program with too many silly fx and a (as far as i know) broken normal map display, so i don't care about it.
You have to remember peeps that your limited as to how many textures you can use in a shader. SM3.0 cards can only call upto 15/16 textures, and Max is already extremely buggy with framerate issues for RT shaders on high quality assets, so trying to add anything more other then "oh, Mutiply color here and there" is akin to walking a very fine line of constant crashing.
Frankly, both shaders are the same, even quality wise. The only real difference they have between each other is the way they use Opacity.
Replies
although I quite like this one:
http://www.mentalwarp.com/~brice/brdf.php
as it produces a nice result with little effort
3point Shader
Pros:
- Quality Normals function (Edited this in
- You essentially have 2 environment map slots. Pretty nice for blending cubemaps. You can have a cubemap that is better at solid reflections in one and the other one be the one that has your more interesting color or ambient lighting. I like using a custom studio cubemap built from an HDR for the reflections and then use either the cubemaps that come with 3point or elsewhere for color.
- Comes with cubemaps if you don't want to make your own.
- Organization and simplicity? Something about the setup in 3point pro version that just feels clean compact and sexy.
Cons:
- You have to pay for the User interface.
- I have issues with lights and settings sometimes. (I will get everything set just right and then randomly it will blow the scene out without the numbers changing. So I go in and have to reset everything to a really low number.)
- Only allowed 3 lights.
- Other cons involve lacking what Xoliul Shader has as Pros
Xoliul Shader (note: haven't worked with this as much because it fries my max due to having a really bad ATI model)
Pros:
- It is free (comes with UI)
- It has the ability to save presets including lights and material setup.
- Can tint your diffuse with a color picker in max (can use a mask with this)
- Hue and Saturation controls.
- 2 sided material option. < this is amazing.
Cons:
- You know before the big upgrade I thought I remember there being two environment map slots (ambient and reflect) but for some reason I couldn't find it in the new version. And like I said I didn't play around with it for very long. So this could be a ID10T Error.
- Only allowed 3 lights
- Not a big fan of the ui.
Marmoset
Pros: So MANY I can't name them all so I will name the main ones.
- Simplicity. OMG it can be so simple to set a model up. Sometimes it is nice to be able to throw a model in marmo and everything just function so quickly, and look good, without really any setup.
- Lights. You are not limited to the amount of lights you can have (I think I had almost 60 in a dungeon level I made.) And again SO SIMPLE!
- Skin Shader. Mmmm
- Height maps.
- DOF
- Bloom
- Video output!
- Proper wireframe setting.
- Ability to display separate passes.
Cons:
- not in max. lol
- being able to have a model in max gives you some interesting control.
- I would like to be able to load cubemaps into a slot. (need to research how to bring in custom environment maps in... Overall the process seems more complicated)
TO SUM IT ALL UP
If I had to suggest to someone what to go with I would say Marmoset is a must with one of the others. You might not want to buy 2 packages, so I would suggest spending your money on marmoset and download Xoliul Shader for free as you can get comparable results between it and 3point.
For the record... I have Marmoset and 3point. Reason was because Xoliul Shader was not as awesome as it was now when I initially bought 3point. Ultimately test both 3point and Xoliul on your setup and make sure they work because Xoliul's blows up my max 2012 in a number of ways. And when I saw the help file it pretty much said "Well if you are on an ATI and still experiencing lots of problems, maybe you should consider switching to a Nvidia."
Hope that helps
it's easier to adjust the pose of a model and so forth while getting a realtime response from the shader in the viewport than having to constantly export/import/check/go back/export/import etc.
I tend to market to broke college kids because I am one, and I am surrounded by them. They always ask which I use and what they should get. And I tell them if they can spend the money on marmoset you can have that... the light version of 3point and Xoliul if you want and then really you have the best of everything.
I am broke now probably because I am spending all my money on little things like Marmoset, 3point, and Ndo2. I am really waiting to see what the 3point Shader 2 brings to the table!
I do agree with that control though. Believe I stated that in there. lol Having the ability to tweak in max on the fly is awesome.
Edit: Whenever I get some base textures started I tend to pull it up in 3point and marmoset and go with whichever looks better by default. There is something about loading a stylized/toony texture into marmoset that plays well with it. And 3point I find a lot easier to achieve more realistic results.
-if you have max 2011 with the hotfix or max 2012, you can use the official "qualified" normals fix with any compatible shader. both this and 3point's solutions look identical, but it's a true fix by autodesk rather than a bolt-on to max like 3point's modifier. xoliulshader supports this and lets you view normal maps the right way.
also, as far as i know, marmoset isn't synced to anything.
-the reason for a single cubemap slot in xoliulshader 2 is for simplicity. besides, i can't remember the last time i used separate ambient and reflection cubemaps.
-i beta tested xoliulshader extensively on a 4870 and it worked fine. ATI drivers are notoriously sketchy though so your mileage may vary.
but yeah, to sum it up, 3 point shader (paid) and xoliulshader 2 (free) are comparable in almost every way. IMO the 3point UI is better, but xoliulshader is free and has a decent UI too. marmoset is a separate program with too many silly fx and a (as far as i know) broken normal map display, so i don't care about it.
Frankly, both shaders are the same, even quality wise. The only real difference they have between each other is the way they use Opacity.
It's synced to Maya.
Isn't properly synced to anything.
Go ahead, bake a box with soft normals in maya, check it in maya HQ viewport(it will look great) then throw it into marmoset. =P
We used Maya for exporting and animations for marmoset, but that's the extent of it.