Genesis Supersuit shaders in Carrara question

Sphinx Magoo

This might be a very basic thing so I apologize in advance for my noobidity.

I load a character that I set up in DS. It has the Supersuit. C8.5Pro does a neat job bringing it all in, but I'd like to tweak some of the textures. With the way the Supersuit is set up, dozens of material zones all have the same shader settings. Is there a way to select the whole group of zones with, say, the metallic chrome shader applied to them and tweak them all without having to copy and paste settings to all of them. That's kind of what I used to do with a less complicated figure, but I think there must be an easier way, isn't there?

In DS, I'm used to being able to select a material zone, the expand the selection to include other zones with the same diffuse color, diffuse map, etc. Once selected, I can edit them all at once. Is there something similar I can do in Carrara?

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

evilproducer

SmallFry said:

This might be a very basic thing so I apologize in advance for my noobidity.

I load a character that I set up in DS. It has the Supersuit. C8.5Pro does a neat job bringing it all in, but I'd like to tweak some of the textures. With the way the Supersuit is set up, dozens of material zones all have the same shader settings. Is there a way to select the whole group of zones with, say, the metallic chrome shader applied to them and tweak them all without having to copy and paste settings to all of them. That's kind of what I used to do with a less complicated figure, but I think there must be an easier way, isn't there?

In DS, I'm used to being able to select a material zone, the expand the selection to include other zones with the same diffuse color, diffuse map, etc. Once selected, I can edit them all at once. Is there something similar I can do in Carrara?

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

First of all, select the Super suit and then the model (or actor) in the Instances Palette. Next, select the shading tab at the top of the screen. This will display the shading domain list. Above the list is a big multi-colored ball. Drag and drop the shader from the Shader Browser onto the ball. This will change the shaders in all domains all at once.

WendyLuvsCatz

he wants to keep the different textures
Fenrics multi shader editor plugin sounds like the best tool

http://www.daz3d.com/fenric/shader-power-tools-for-carrara
http://fenric.com/wordpress/downloads/

evilproducer

Oops. Mis-read that one.

Aside from Febric's plugin, there's the Consolidate Duplicate Shader command under Edit--> Remove Unused Masters. If that doesn't do the trick, click and drag the shader you want in the domain list down to the next instance and drop it. You may have to give an additional click to set it. Repeat the process down the domain list.

Sphinx Magoo

Thank you both for replying. These sound like great options to explore.

I see that Fenric has a bunch of cool tools for Carrara. Does anyone have anything to offer about them before I start searching through the Forums for word about them?

For the Consolidate Duplicate Shader command, does it essentially parry down the many instances of one shader (say, a red velvet leather shader) to one instance of that shader that I can then tweak? I just want to understand what it might do so I can experiment when I get the chance.

Thanks again!

WendyLuvsCatz

you can try trial in second link

evilproducer

SmallFry said:

Thank you both for replying. These sound like great options to explore.

I see that Fenric has a bunch of cool tools for Carrara. Does anyone have anything to offer about them before I start searching through the Forums for word about them?

For the Consolidate Duplicate Shader command, does it essentially parry down the many instances of one shader (say, a red velvet leather shader) to one instance of that shader that I can then tweak? I just want to understand what it might do so I can experiment when I get the chance.

Thanks again!

Yes, the Consolidate duplicate shader command is supposed to do what you describe. The other way I mentioned is sort of a manual way to do it.

Dartanbeck

SmallFry said:

For the Consolidate Duplicate Shader command, does it essentially parry down the many instances of one shader (say, a red velvet leather shader) to one instance of that shader that I can then tweak?

Yes,
No need to select anything... just open the scene and:
Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidated Duplicate Shaders

Works like a charm, and should be used in these cases in Carrara, it'll save you on resources.

Dartanbeck

Fenric's plugins are all worth their weight in gold, but you won't need it for this.

However, the one that Wendy mentions can be really useful in many situations.
What it does is to allow you to make the same changes to many different shaders, all at the same time.

Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Shaders consolidates all identical shaders into a single shader, and applies that single shader to all domains using one of those identical shaders.

When ever you bring in a new model , or a new multi-shader that applies across multiple domains, each domain shader gets it's own, individual and unique name applied to it. It is convenient, as then each domain can immediately be tweaked individually at that early stage. But when you want to converge all identical shaders, consolidate them and then save the scene.

In this article, I discuss how I save my individual components of content into my own browser. Once I've saved my stuff in this manner, it's all consolidated and optimized, and ready to go on the fly. So I've been spending the past few years creating a wonderful library of my optimized content, as I work on my projects.

Sphinx Magoo

Thank you, everyone, for your help. You've all been very kind with your assistance. I really appreciate it.