what's the equivalent to Material Room in DS? for customizing shaders and not use presets

Mistara

is particles just another word for lots of tiny lil planes?

zigraphix

Misty Whisky said:

needing some steam wisps, like from a baked pie. shade mixer to the rescue?

anyway to bring a bryce preset material into shade mixer?

can't imagine it, but i don't know what language Bryce uses.

There's no way to bring a Bryce material into Shader Mixer directly, but you could probably recreate it by looking at the Bryce material definition and recreating it in Shader Mixer. Bryce and DS use different render software, so code for one won't work in the other.

If you don't need the steam to be animated, a simple plane positioned above the pie that is mostly transparent except for the steam wisps is probably the way to go. There are sets like this that can also be used:

http://www.daz3d.com/jepe-s-specialz-part-i

The effects in this one are three dimensional, which is nice if you want to show different angles with less fuss:

http://www.daz3d.com/fire-and-smoke-for-daz-studio

Check ShareCG for free "smoke" or "steam" props, too.

Particles can be implemented in many ways, but in DS they are usually done with a lot of small planes, yes. You don't need them for a basic steam effect, unless you're going to do animation and you want a complicated environment with wind and such. For a simpler animation, there are animated single-plane effects, or you can use a plugin like this:

http://www.daz3d.com/animated-textures-plug-in-for-daz-studio

Mistara

finally installed that fire and smoke for ds. thrusters on full captain :lol: