Using shaders with Iray?

Sephnroth

Hi all - I'm wondering what makes a shader (or any kind of material) an "Iray" compatiable one and is there any way to use non Iray shaders or convert them to be Iray compatible? I have a GTX 1070 which I have been using with the beta build of daz and it makes Iray SO MUCH FASTER than 3delight by many magnitudes, the results are great also. However I have a project that would really benefit from detailed anime style shading, for example the Visual Style Shaders on the daz store look PERFECT.

Except they don't mention Iray at all. Can I make this work with the Iray renderer? If not what are my alternatives? I'm not looking for flat cell shading but textured, smooth looking cell based shading like Visual Style.

 

Thanks!

Richard Haseltine

Custom shaders like these are 3Delight specific I'm afraid.

JD_Mortal

There will soon be a bunch of toon-style shaders for IRAY. It is possible to "Make them", if you know how to make shader-scripts. IRAY has many more options than 3DeLight, when it comes to shaders. However, the ones specific to 3DeLight, there is no direct conversion.

For materials, converting 3DeLight to IRAY, is as simple, in most cases, as selecting the "!Iray Uber Base", from the "Presets" tab, in the "Surfaces" panel. (Once you have selected an object or specific surface.)

The best IRAY specific set that I have seen, and tested for toon-style shaders, is a script called "LineRender 9000" Well worth the money, for what it does, and it does a LOT... (May not seem like it, until you actually realize you have infinate possibilities once you pile all the images into a single layered image and start manipulating the layer blend-modes.)

http://www.daz3d.com/linerender9000

Additionally, you can render using 3DeLight, with the toon-shaders, followed by a typical IRAY render, for a mixture of the two. Using an external paint/image program for the final blended layers. (You will have to do this with LineRender 9000 too, as there is no internal component within daz for image-layer manipulation, yet... I say "yet", as a hopefull plea that daz impliments this old and ancient and simple technology that almost every program has implimented... Many not even art programs!)

In any event, if you like that style of art, it will be wise to research "Rendering cell-style art". Most is done post-render, using rendering assistance. Chances that you will ever find an "artistic" shader, which needs the mind of a human artist, not a linear scientific program-code, are slim, at best.

For more control, look into the "Advanced" tab in the IRAY render panel, Goto the "Canvases" tab in there. Research how to use them first... You can get additional "Beautification" layers and isolated layers, for further manipulation in paint programs. (Some are tricky, like the depth-shades, which actually requires a conversion before it can be used directly in a paint program. Awesome for depth-fog and light-rays and depth-contrast shading and hilights.)