Thank You. Yes I was wondering what a gamma meter is, seeing I don't think I could poser without the light meter, wondering what wonders the gamma meter might hold.

Laurie

Very nice, Laurie!

Quote - Thank You. Yes I was wondering what a gamma meter is, seeing I don't think I could poser without the light meter, wondering what wonders the gamma meter might hold.

While trying to help someone there were claims of "my render gamma was X" when it was not, which led to some difficulties in communication and understanding.

So I invented the BBGammaMeter, which will tell me by rendering it whether or not you know what render gamma you have, and what your light levels are.

Ironically, after posting it, I never had to use it again.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3850427&ebot_calc_page#message_3850427

Quote - Green aventurine :D

Laurie

Nice aventurine

Quote - Thanks for the shader. I'll buy it later anyway, so it's only a loaner. There is some other interesting stuff there, can we look at it?

Congrats on scooping both 2nd and 3rd place in the forum comp by the way GeneralNutt! Bonanza!

Quote - OK one more test. (I have been doing this for days.)

Here is your color in BBGlossy, your chosen boost in Candy, and in flat matte.

Look right?

the middle one, kinda looks like it's inside a shadow orb. transparency edge?

Quote - Green aventurine :D

Laurie

it haz the lustre going on  :)

Well, I'm sure BB or anyone else could do a better one if they had the time or inclination, but I don't think it's too bad for a material room dummy ;).

I even managed blue agate (sorta) without using Pow ;).

Laurie

Laurie,

Your earings look like they will be a wonderful addition to any runtime.

Monkeycloud,

Thank You. I was pretty sure I had seen two of the images that were in the contest had previous won past contests, so I was shooting for a 3rd place finish, so I did way better then I hoped to. Having Bill say mine was technically the best was pretty sweet on it's own (though afterwords I considered almost everything in there was his shaders). Every time someone picks one of your images it feels pretty dang good. I'm sure for the pro's it's a meh moment, but for an amateur, it feels pretty good. My only disappointment was right after reading basicwiz's message, power fluxed, shut down the computer and lost two days of rendering with only two rows to go.

the greens would be nice for the halls of a jade palace. 

Many thanks again for that British Racing Green BB

My catbot avatar has his upgrade rendering now...

The pattern is a Cellular node in Mode 3 with Turbulence=2. This is modulating the candy thickness.

satinFlame = PM(p.satinFlame, 'Satin Flame')   

sz = PM(p.satinFlameSize, 'Satin Flame Size')   

value = satinFlame * Cellular(0, 1, 1, 1, sz, sz, sz, 0, 3, 0, 2)   

candyThickness *= (1 - value)

Laurie

Everything you have is correct, but not complete. Very close.

Here's what I will address:

1. The diffuse value should follow the complement of the reflection value. If you don't do this, you get a fuzzy white edge. This is easy to correct with a Math subtract. Or you could have wired diffuse and reflect directly into the Fresnel_Blend - which is how SM intended it to be used. But I prefer the way you did it for a couple reasons I won't bother explaining.

2. Now that we use reflection and blinn with a goal of high realism, I prefer to drive them both from the Fresnel_Blend for consistency. This is done by plugging the Fresnel_Blend into the Blinn Reflectivity, and setting its SpecularRollOff to 1 - disabling that.

3. In order to get a consistent outcome between reflected glowing elements and the Blinn (which deals only with light sources) some slight adjustment is called for.

Your original on the left, my adjustment on the right.

Ugh...I think I know what ya mean but wasn't sure how to put it together....lol. I almost had it. Had the subtract math functions node plugged into the color. Silly...lol. Otherwise I had it - except the blinn settings.

Yes, and yours looks a LOT better...hehe. Thanks ;)

Laurie

In some ways, this arrangement is preferred as it offers a rule you can follow over and over.

Here the Fresnel_Blend is being allowed to manage two layers - the surface, and the subsurface.

The surface effect handles reflections and specular at the material-air boundary. This is our Outer_Color, and consists of the sum of Reflect and Blinn. (Reflect for objects, Blinn for lights. But remember this is an artificial distinction caused by history. In Lux this is one thing, not two. I wish Poser had a new node that dealt with both.)

The subsurface effect is our Inner_Color. In this case we use a traditional Diffuse, but in a moment you'll see how we change that.

A render of this would look identical to the shader I just gave you.

Logically this is identical. But it will give us a subtly different look! In fact, it will look more like glass because of the scatter, and the ks_microfacet is slightly better at making a realistic sharp highlight. Just what we need here.

On the right, the Reflect+ks_microfacet+Scatter.

Ooooh. I'll try that last one. Thanks! :D

Laurie

Out with the Scatter, in with the Refract.

But!

There's no place to plug in the color, and if we use the color as-is it will be wrong.

Refraction in Poser happens at mesh boundaries. When we look through an object via refraction, we multiply with the color on each bounce, which means looking through two mesh boundaries we get color times color, or color ** 2.

If we want the same effective coloring, we must use the square root of the color we want. I do that with the Color_Math node. This is multiplied with the Refract node, giving us the subsurface effect we want into the Fresnel_Blend Inner_Color.

Previous Scatter glass is on the right.

So, that new transparent glass can be used with gemstones as well with the correct IOR in the fresnel blend? I am saving all these material room panels yanno...lol. Reference - always looking for reference ;).

Laurie

Quote - So, that new transparent glass can be used with gemstones as well with the correct IOR in the fresnel blend? I am saving all these material room panels yanno...lol. Reference - always looking for reference ;).

Laurie

Yes you can use this for gem stones.

And the color does not need to be a constant - it can be more nodes plugged into the Sqrt, and have the Sqrt Value_1 color be white so it just takes whatever you have plugged into it.

I know. Good stuff, right? ;) They look nice :)

Laurie

Here's how to wire it up with Fresnel_Blend.

It's VERY important that you plug the Reflect node into Alternate_Diffuse, and not into Reflection_Color. The Poser Surface node does old-school incorrect math with Reflection_Color channel data and transparency. It does not attempt any such bull-sh** with the Alternate_Diffuse data.

The correct math is in Fresnel_Blend. That's what we want it to use.

I used Satin Flame on the fenders.

copy image...thanks BB! Again :D

Laurie

Laurie

Oooh - that's a nice one.

It almost looks volumetric. Is that two surfaces or one?

Hmmm - you've given me an idea.

Actually it's a real mishmash...lol. No clue of what I'm doing but the result was what I wanted...lol. And I haven't set it up for Poser 9/2012 yet ;). Screenie in a minute....

Laurie

What I was initially trying to do was to find a way to do those awesome swirls and rings like agate has without using the P node. Failed in that, but got this instead. I can't do malachite or azurite until I figure out how to do that. Can't be done I guess.

Oh, and it's only one surface if you mean is there a cover over the cabs...

Laurie

It just occured to me that I may be able to do swirls and rings with the cellular node. Hmmm....

Laurie

Hah - I know you have an aversion to matmatic but it comes with demos of agate-like swirls.

Create two clouds nodes. The first should be gray and white, and plug that into the scale input of the second. Use colors on the second one. Try different ratios in two scales.

Quote - Hah - I know you have an aversion to matmatic but it comes with demos of agate-like swirls.

Create two clouds nodes. The first should be gray and white, and plug that into the scale input of the second. Use colors on the second one. Try different ratios in two scales.

Thanks! I'll give it a shot ;).  And I do have an aversion to Matmatic...lol. I understand programming language about as much as I understand the material room :P LOL

Laurie

Quote - You know this is one of the most difficult materials of all.

I needed a reference image where I control (and can reproduce) the lighting. So I took a magazine (to see reflections) and put some pearls on it and shot the picture.

I attached that to a Poser square, and suspended some Poser pearls and went to work.

I am closer, I think, than last time.

I'm not sure if I am willing to give this one away, though. This belongs in the store - nobody has anything like it. It happens to be using some techniques for thin coatings that I only recently developed. Like a few days ago. I'm getting that ready for the store, too.

I'll buy it, especially if it comes with those thin-coat shaders.  Or any shaders.  More shaders.  More is definately better.  One always needs more shaders.  Right after chocolate.

Quote - I'll buy it, especially if it comes with those thin-coat shaders.  Or any shaders.  More shaders.  More is definately better.  One always needs more shaders.  Right after chocolate.

Everything after chocolate ;).

Laurie

Perf. I totally needed some colored glass for something I'm planning. ^_^

Ne, BB...Any timeline for when these delish new shaders will be available for purchase? I want to make sure to work them into my budget!

Probably next week.

By the way - the crazy paint makes the best nail polish.

The glitter one actually looks really similar to some of the nail polish I've got, heh. I also have one that's kind of similar to the Satin Flame if I do some fancy nail-paint tricks with a toothpick, heh.

Quote - Probably next week.

By the way - the crazy paint makes the best nail polish.

I've been using your BB Car Paint shader for nails for a LONG time ;).

Laurie

Now, I've gotta stop or I'll be fiddling with this stuff forever...lol.

Laurie

Very nice effect.

Catbot got his British Racing Green paint job... pity I forgot to change the white undercoat for that candy shader. Least I think that's what I didn't do??

Very nice - did you make that set? It's cool.

What do you mean about forgetting to change the white undercoat? For what purpose?