Smells like almonds?

[mikeh64]

SLA is now part of C4D, many names have changed - but much of the current shader system is built around the old SLA

Maybe someone has a key to understand what various SLA names have been changed to...

[Gustaffo]

So how do i use it? Is it built into the material manager?

[ThirdEye]

So how do i use it? Is it built into the material manager?

that's correct.

[mikeh64]

built in:

fresnel, noise, tiles, most of the "shaders" (like cheen, danel, etc), many of the layer shaders (like fusion), and many of the effects shaders (like lumas) - all old SLA stuff

it is so integrated and updated and changed at this point it is hard to say "this is sla and this isn't" - just know that using the C4D material system is using the old sla, plus the original system, and many new changes and additions

[Erik Heyninck]

The best and most complete info on the shaders can be found in the manual from page 787 onwards. Yet, impo, reading the chapter on the MaterialManager (p737 and onwards) first helps clearing things up.

short:

1/ create new material
2/ in material manager choose the channels you want to work on (luminance, diffuse, bump,...) and then choose your shader or structure of shaders for every channel.
3/ You can combine shaders with either the layer shader or the fusion shader.

Read the chapters with Cinema active and try it all out. One fascinating adventure on a cold an rainy day!

[Gustaffo]

Ok thanks a lot for the help, i understand now!! :)

[duderender]

3/ You can combine shaders with either the layer shader or the fusion shader.


this is news to me. You cannot add nukei and danel for example in a layer shader. the shaders are standalone. You can mix them by using them as a base material and adding other materials above it.

[Per-Anders]

nukei and danel are materials, not shaders.

it's worth learning the lumas shader and others in the traditional materials, it's very very rare that i ever use danel etc as you can do everything using normal materials with much more control (the only thing you'll need is the free distance falloff plugin from plugincafe for the reflection falloff over distance in danel).

[duderender]

nukei and danel are materials, not shaders.

it's worth learning the lumas shader and others in the traditional materials, it's very very rare that i ever use danel etc as you can do everything using normal materials with much more control (the only thing you'll need is the free distance falloff plugin from plugincafe for the reflection falloff over distance in danel).

LOL, funny Maxon calls them shaders. And according to most of Maxon's documentation these are the basis from the SLA shaders.

[ThirdEye]

Yes but they are 3D shaders, which means they're basically materials.

[duderender]

and you wonder why people get confused with terms no one uses consistently ;)

shaders are what tells the renderer what to do, so in fact materials are shaders ;)

[Per-Anders]

the sdk/internals describe things correctly (i.e. a material is what is interpreted by the render engine and can hold shaders which are what appears in a texture/shader link).

the application itself mostly describes things correctly too, though stretches things a little by using the term "Texture" to cover shaders as well as textures (which really means bitmaps), and god knows why the previously termed volumetric materials are now under a list called "Shader". you have the materials manager, in which you have materials, you apply a materials tag to an object not a shader tag. if you add a user data to an object set it to a "Link" type you can then choose to give it a "Shader" interface, this is the same interface you see in the materials.

The confusion arises from the renaming of "Volumetric Materials" to "Shaders" in the Materials Manager file menu. This was in retrospect perhaps a mistake as it does cause this confusion.

Anyhow, if you were to use another application you would find that the material is the sum of the parts applied to the object, and the shaders are the parts therein, in a node based network that includes the illumination models.

Oh yes, and both materials and shaders tell the renderer what to do in Cinema.

[Erik Heyninck]

I understand your confusion, Duderender!
I never understood why they chose for Points, Edges and Polygon *tools* instead of *modes*.

But indeed, as the question was about Smells Like Allmonds, and those six volume materials are part of the original suite, they cannot be combined using fusion or layer.

The text on p844 does indeed add to the confusion as it gives the impression that those six are *the* SLA shaders, which is not true. Most of the shaders that are now in cinema were originally Bhodinut's work. I'd dare to state that it was Bhodinut who made Cinema's material system interesting, and it was one of the main reasons I decided for Maxon.

This said: with Nukei, you can combine two channels. The trick with LEVR to get dirt on something is well known. It was even added to nthe tutorials of r8.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.