making sense of my shaders: help a clueless noob

sriesch

I haven't worked with shaders much in Studio, and I'm trying to get a handle on what I have and get started. This is probably all very obvious to most people, and I'm sure I'm making it harder than it needs to be; please help me get organized.

In my content, I have shaders, shader presets marked "shader", shader presets without the "shader" tag, a shader preset with a "light" tag, , shader mixer presets, a shader builder surface preset "veined_marble.dsa" all by itself in "C:/sean/program use only/DAZ Studio". What's for what?

I understand that there are shader presets that can be used in Shader Mixer, and presumably the rest can't be. I'm unfamiliar with Shader Builder yet and don't know if there are presets that are only useable with it, if any. Are there more types of shaders that are only useable in certain ways that I need to separate? I don't know how to tell which is which without just trying to load every single one one at a time into the Shader Mixer and seeing if they load or if nothing happens. (I do see the tools for changing scale and angle that belong to the Shader Mixer, I know where those go.)

I'm assuming all shaders (except the scale/rotation tools) can just be applied to surfaces (or volumes for things like fog) regardless of what kind of shader (Shader Mixer, regular shader. etc) they are; is this correct?

Beyond that... ummm.... help?

Concerning Shader mixer, I see the thread "List of Shader Mixer Tutorials and Recipes" http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/42/ , and I know there are a few scraps of information in the unfinished wiki, but I'm having trouble locating any good basic non-video tutorials that describe all the parameters and usesage of the various blocks . Suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Szark

The term Shader is a broad term which can be texture map based surface shader or Shader Mixer based shader or even light emitting.

Shader Builder is for compliing externally made shaders so they will work inside Daz Studio

Shader Mixer is just that mixing predefined Bricks to make a new shader.

To apply a shader you need to select the object and the surface/s and then Double click on a preset to apply the shader.

You can take a Daz Defualt Shader in to the Shader Mixer and add to it and then save that as a new shader.

I’m assuming all shaders (except the scale/rotation tools) can just be applied to surfaces (or volumes for things like fog) regardless of what kind of shader (Shader Mixer, regular shader. etc) they are; is this correct?

Yes

As for documentation I think this is the best DAZ3D has got so far http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/shader_mixer/start

Khory

Technically the term shader refers to the base information that will govern what you can do on a surface. For example the DAZ default and ubershader are both shaders. They add different things that you can do on a surface that they are used on. In thier basic form they give you those capabilities but don't actually use any of them. A preset is file that actually takes advantage of what a shader can do by actually having settings, texture maps attached and so on. So shaders actually give you the "potential" while a preset is "use". In virtually everyones defense it is hard to not just call a preset a shader. I find I have to correct myself regularly and I've been making presets for shaders for years now.

Shader lights are lights that have more base capabilities than the 3 basic light types. The most common types add things like decay or ambient occlusion to the light. While Studio does include a couple of example lights most are created with shader mixer.

mjc1016

Technically, all the lights in DS are shader lights...it's just the standard lights are very basic, few control shader lights...

The basic Surface, in contrast, is a rather complex shader.

Khory...I've been making both...and still end up calling presets 'shaders'...and it doesn't help that in 4.5 there wasn't a separate 'Shader' folder...or is it worse because before 4.5, there wasn't a separate 'Shader Presets' folder? I like the way the UberEnvironment2 folder is set up...the 'base' is labled then it's followed by the presets..

Probably a good way to think of it is...a shader is a can of paint. It comes in glossy, semi-gloss, eggshell and flat. Without adding anything else to it, just using its 'base' form, it's a rather boring, not quite white, can of white paint Take it over to the desk, with color chip chart in hand...and let the clerk do a little magic...and BAM...something that actually looks like something.

sriesch

thanks for the info!