Consolidate Duplicate Shaders

Pjotter

What will be the result when using Consolidate Duplicate Shaders. Will it do much good. I am afraid of using it, because I am not sure if Carrara handles this the right way.

3dOutlaw

I believe it checks for the same image file and settings of one shader being used by different material zones. If they are duplicate, then it removes one of those shader, and uses the duplicate of the first material zone for the other part. Very useful in some cases, when you are limiting file size, or want to use a master material, but in other cases where you want to tweak shaders per materials zone, not as useful.

You need to decide for yourself

I think this is explained in the C7P docs.

Jonstark

I use it all the time as it's especially handy when tweaking textures for a character's skin. It just combines all the duplicate shaders into one shader, and when I change the one shader it changes all of the channels that it is the shader for.

So if I didn't use the consolidate shaders function, if I made a change to a texture on V4's hip texture, and I wanted that change to apply to all the areas of V4 that use the exact same texture locations, I would then have to manually pull up and make that same change to the Chest section, then do it again to the neck, then do it again to the abdomen... etc. Whereas if I've consolidated shaders, the change I make to the texture for the V4 hip will automatically also be changing the shader for neck, abdomen, chest

Also the benefit of consolidating shaders means that there are less actual shaders in the scene, and this can help make the scene more manageable and Carrara to work faster with larger scenes.

3dOutlaw

Jonstark said:

So if I didn't use the consolidate shaders function, if I made a change to a texture on V4's hip texture, and I wanted that change to apply to all the areas of V4 that use the exact same texture locations, I would then have to manually pull up and make that same change to the Chest section, then do it again to the neck, then do it again to the abdomen... etc. Whereas if I've consolidated shaders, the change I make to the texture for the V4 hip will automatically also be changing the shader for neck, abdomen, chest

...though if you did not want to consolidate all shaders in the whole scene (but you did on v4), the easier way to do this is to change the hip shader, then drag/drop that shader on the other parts. It would be much, much quicker.

I figure you knew that, but for the op, just in case. ;-)

Jonstark

3doutlaw said:

Jonstark said:

So if I didn't use the consolidate shaders function, if I made a change to a texture on V4's hip texture, and I wanted that change to apply to all the areas of V4 that use the exact same texture locations, I would then have to manually pull up and make that same change to the Chest section, then do it again to the neck, then do it again to the abdomen... etc. Whereas if I've consolidated shaders, the change I make to the texture for the V4 hip will automatically also be changing the shader for neck, abdomen, chest

...though if you did not want to consolidate all shaders in the whole scene (but you did on v4), the easier way to do this is to change the hip shader, then drag/drop that shader on the other parts. It would be much, much quicker.

I figure you knew that, but for the op, just in case. ;-)

:) True enough. But I pretty much always consolidate shaders for the whole scene at once, as in general I can't of too many reasons not to make my scene (and general shader editing) more efficient at one swoop.

Occasionally I'll consolidate shaders and then realize after I've done it that one of the areas that's been consolidated I want different from the others. In that case I simply use the little drop down in the texture room for that area and go all the way down to 'create new shader'. It'll come out basic grey, but I can alter it to suit at that point. That's the only possible downside I can think of to using 'consolidate shaders' function, but it's possible I'm forgetting something...

3dOutlaw

I was just doing a bunch of similar shaders using YaToon2, and I found that in the Shaders tab at the bottom right, when in the scene view, you can right-click copy/paste shaders, and it renames them like windows. This was handy when I wanted to retain all the shader settings, but change the color.

Sorry op, we are getting off your topic...but good stuff! :)

Pjotter

OK, thanks for explaining. I had no idea what would happen. Gonna give it a try.

Jonstark

3d outlaw, I did not know that, thanks! Very cool, this Carrara animal, all the hidden things it can do to make life easier... :)

DAZ_Spooky

It is both a blessing and a curse. :) Yes it will quickly consolidate shaders that are the same, but that is not always a good thing. There are quite a few product this actually breaks. (Body suits come immediately to mind, as does the Mil Cat.)

You can get the same result with a little more work by using reference shaders but still having individual shaders you can still change.

So use it with caution. :)

Dartanbeck

3doutlaw said:

I was just doing a bunch of similar shaders using YaToon2, and I found that in the Shaders tab at the bottom right, when in the scene view, you can right-click copy/paste shaders, and it renames them like windows. This was handy when I wanted to retain all the shader settings, but change the color.

Sorry op, we are getting off your topic...but good stuff! :)

That's what I do "After" Consolidating if I know I need i specific, different shader. Fingernails and toe nails is an excellent example of this, as I'll copy/paste my 'limbs' shader and change the highlights/shininess to suit.

Yeah... I consolidate constantly. Much better performance when a lot of shaders are needed - and you trim loads off. ;)