Incorporated new volumetric system > Unlimited shading possibilities!
Kept the fast 1.1 GPU latency and elegant shader concept.
Kept fully automated internal concept and simple, intuitive settings for artists.
Volumetrics can be disabled (volumetrics socket), so it still works on older GPUs very fast!
Surface scattering is separate and fast for SSS without volumetrics.
Note: you will need CUDA 6.5+ and Blender 2.71.6+(official buildbot!) for it to work on GPU. Also 3 GB+ GPU strongly advised for volumetrics!
Get it here:
v1.1
Optimized node setup, 20% more compact, less nodes, faster render while keeping all features!
Routed Scatter color outside for separate control.
Arranged the settings even more intuitive.
Features:
Fully GPU compliant!
Speed is even faster than the normal Universalshader!
Complete quasi-volumetric/raycasting including SSS
Universal setup, NO sockets, ONE output!
Extremely intuitive parameters for artists
COMPLETE MODEL for any material you want (only physically accurate nodes used!)
Speed and efficient routing and reuse of nodes internally in an very flexible way
IOR driven Surface and Subsurface setup
Texturing with only 2 texture inputs (surface/subsurface)!
Only 10, really easy settings!
Color coded and internal organized for easy tweaking.
Tested it quickly and it seems quite nice, just wondering though aint it possible to use this shader without sss? Just tried everysetting and I found that subsurface color kept always influencing final result, no matter what values I used. Obviously its possible to set sss color same as surface, but I would that it just makes shader slower to compute if we do it without any reason?
Everything is ok, the subsurface equates to both the diffuse and the scattering.
So, setting Specularity to 0 is a full diffuse and setting scattering to 0 eliminates SSS fully so it can’t influence result anymore which is also fast.
But regarding colors(!): Don’t forget (look at the diagram): diffuse/scattering=subsurface. refraction/reflection=surface, so the diffuse will have the same (subsurface) color of the scattering(sss, also a subsurface).
Now lets say you want a surface with a color (diffuse=subsurface) then you need the surface a glossy with a high roughness! (like in reality), then the colors are separate.
Lets say you want a surface with glossy, diffuse and sss, then its obvious, the sss and diffuse have the same color (internal medium), and the reflection being a surface gets a reflection “diffuse” with a high roughness.
You need to understand the horizontal internal/external medium in the reference i posted above, then its easy. The point being that once one material property kicks IOR driven in, the other one is attenuated.
Also this shader is IOR fresnel driven, so the higher the IOR, the higher the glossyness.
This is a new concept that maybe confuses although its really simple, cause it is more intuitive. The old concept one is having diffuse as a surface instead of the reflection with high roughness(!), which is actually “wrong”. This does not exist in nature. You need to rethink here the shading approach!
Surfaces are only surface interfaces like specular and reflection. But diffuse belongs to a (infinitely dense) SUBsurface) and is NOT an interface but a medium (although very thin).
This shader is ONLY for the material itself regarding physicality, it is not for unrealistic media like the “old” Universalshader concept i did with many sockets. Once you have your result and want to have other multilayered surface properties (as an for wet water (glossy) overlay), you would need to add a glossy to mix with this shader, but this again is obvious and in most cases not necessary. (Which BTW would be also also wrong, water is a volume not a surface property :-D)
@rattle-snake
many thanks. like i see you need to increase the scattering size parameter and maybe decrease the scattering value a little to get the octane render in cycles ;-). Very nice alien, keep up the work, with the scattering type value you can also make the sss slimy/watery. Play with it.
still now with 2.7 volumetrics are still cpu only and even wen gpu volumetrics come, this non-volumetrics shader will always be faster especially for animation. But of course i will add them once volum. are gpu ready (for clouds etc…)
For your question about materials, i really dont like 100 different material nodes, this is why we made this shader. What i really miss in blender is zhe ability to integrate dropdown presets into a group-node. changing its parameters. Also imported at groupnode append WITHOUT appending the materials. This would be awesome.
Also maybe not necessarily my setup, but the concept of a unified shader now in 2.7 also with volum. would be gold if in the trunk. Maybe gooseberry will push this for faster artist work. Many artists want a flexible shader instead of 100s of predefined unflexible materials in databases, not to mention theor textures…
There are 3 reasons why i didn’t post somewhere else, but also 2 things that REALLY annoy me about Blendswap:
Control. I want a central place to refer to when updating, maintaining, versioning and making tutorials.
Feedback. I want to see statistics, replys and comments about the content.
Platform. I want to support an exchange platform for Blender, not having blender content all over the net where you can’t find it.
Now the ANNOYING stuff about Blendswap i IMHO don’t like AT ALL:
You have to PAY download limits EVEN for as a well known Blender creator (no awards, points etc)! While i understand that Commercial stuff (CC) should be paid for, this has nothing to do with the download traffic ITSELF. I don’t get why content MAKERS have to pay for download, while providing stuff for the platform at NO cost. Also WHY there is a download limit. That limit should ONLY EXIST FOR BIGGER THAN (lets say 100mb files). Then again, why all the ads, if money driven?
Blenderartists is totally free, ads and BFoundation supported, but is not an CMS Platform. The content per month that BA has is huge, still it is free. Gosh even CGcookie is mostly free as long as you don’t get commercial/tutorial, and they have, gigs and gigs of stuff for free download.
Simply put: A simple artist should have access to ALL NONcommercial content with NO download limits below a file size from let say 100mb with Ads on the side included. And NO per/month limit like it is now!
Also a CREATOR should get points for the amount of downloads it generates and/or the quality of the blend, so that he can use them to get Commercial stuff or bigger files. Again, without ANY per/month limit.
So yes, Blendswap has is a very good platform which i need, but i REALLY understand why so many blender artists get upset with that its limits. If you know a better Blender-only exchange platform with (CC) rights management, let me know, but AFAIK there is only BSwap ATM.
We got so off-topic LOOL
Thanks for replying… blender-models is not bad. But it needs a face-lift somehow…
My proposal would be that it should be easy to add blends to BA so that you have your own profile, like deviantart. This would be absolutely great. Deviantart is multifaceted, but BA is blender only.
Play with it.