What sort of shader could win this contest?
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.
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.
Replies
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.
Everyone else, thanks for the ideas, I'll try and come to a decision tonight.
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...
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
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).
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.
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.
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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
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.
Alex