New Shader ball and Library

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

Alright,

For some time now me and pranavjitvirdi have been working on a shader ball model, scene, and library, with the intentions of making it public. This morning, pranavjit placed the final touches on the model and finished cleaning up the last of the bugs (we THINK…)

Please know that it is in our intentions to make it so the general blender comunity can upload their own shaders to the library in the future. It is a priority of ours, but it is not ready yet.

Here is the link to the library and resource files. Enjoy!
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3XCeK6b2Q3uenRGamFmNktxZW8&usp=drive_web

Please note! You do not have to credit the author of the shader, however, We do ask that you site the shader libraries address! Thank you.

What you will find in the library is-

You will find a folder named resources. This folder contains the ShaderBall_1_1.blend file, a gimp file with editable price tag overlay for sales online, and a readme.txt explaining how to use the price tag overlay…

What you need to know about the shader ball-

The shader ball is intended to be rendered at the default 750 samples… Obviously this can be changed but for consistent comparisons of one shader to the next, it is best they all use the same samples.

The parts of the shader ball intended to be given materials by the user are already grouped and selected upon start up! all you have to do is add a shader on the right side and render!

Dont want to use the “matte” lighting setup? in the info bar at the top, located next to layout, you can change to either a high gloss scene or a tron grid scene. All the scenes are 100% linked. If you make a change to one, you make a change to all of them.

Not rendering in blender or cycles, and want to show it? the stand is already UV unwrapped for any one of 3 other render engines logos, which are already packed for you in the blend file. All you have to do is right click on the stand, and on the right, or in the node editor, change the stands UV mapped image to one of the other 3. Luxrender, Yafaray, or Vray.

All images are packed for you, and ready to go.

Things you should know about the library-

The library is made of many sub-categories containing blend files.

Blend files get moved around from time to time. Does not mean they have been removed per say, just moved.

2

Here are some samples…

fabric_alcantara_pranavjit.png750×750 363 KB

paints_glass-powder-coat_thornton_strolia.jpg1080×1080 186 KB

3

Not sure what’s happening… on Osx/Mac your folder/s does not work in Safari/Firefox… It just shows two Folders. I can’t access them. Have no google Account - if necessary. Maybe it’s a setting in your sharing Options or Browser incompatibility? Can you check if you can access from different Browser / Not logged in to google?

4

HUH! you are absolutely right. I will get it worked out. Try again in 5-10 minutes or so (3:04 pm now)

Here is the new link. Might be the same, but I recieved it from googles alternate firefox/IE interface and it appears to be working now… https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3XCeK6b2Q3uenRGamFmNktxZW8&usp=drive_web

5

i have had no use for spherical shape when testing carpet,brick,cloth etc.same with window glass … 3-4 shapes are needed

6

we are working on more scenes and shapes… spherical balls are the best to test many surfaces but as you said other shapes would display different shaders better. some of our upcoming scenes would also include other things such as a hair ball… with particles and combed hair to test your hair shaders and more scenes to test emission shaders.

7

do we need to sign in to download? hmmm

8

ATM yes, you do need a google account to download…
like we said… we are working on some or the other way to allow public get direct access, but security of files is an issue.

9

spheres are standard. in most cases they best represent an organic surface. By defenition, shaderballs are a ball. like pranvjit said, we may work on more in the future, but if you find little use for using a ball to test, than that is all you. most people prefer it and id challenge you to fond anything online other than a ball or a teapot, and occasionally susannes head.

10

NO SIGN IN IS REQUIRED!!! I am not sure what troubles you are having, but in IE, with no sign in, I can download perfectly fine. Open the filed and click the file you want to download, then press download located in the center of the screen.

11

For what it’s worth, there’s no such thing as “license free”. In most countries, if you do not choose a license, then the default license is a standard copyright (i.e. closed, all rights reserved). If you intend for the library to be in the Public Domain, you need to explicitly say so (that is, choose a Public Domain license).

12

what I meant is we post how we want credit which is that you credit the library, not us. we made it clear in the first post. though, i understand what you mean.

13

alright, so a google sign in IS required for whatever reason. I will get around to fixing it later, I hope. According to google “no sign in is required” under my current sharing settings for the folder, so I have NO clue why this is happening.

The best I can say for the time being is that most people DO have a google login at this point in time and until we can get something worked out, I think it will be alright.

14

update on the shaderball… added two more shader preview objects…

  1. cloth - because cloth shaders are not hard surface and need another type of object to preview better. so there you go!

    upload.png750×750 352 KB

  2. hair shader- to test your hair shader… people spend great amount of time making a hair shader but there ain’t a ball to test it. even the blender shader preview has an option for strands. so this was a must have feature. this is what it will look like.

    upload.png750×750 339 KB

about the library…
there are some plans made that would straightaway let you upload your materials and download others have made. it is still a WIP.