What is the advantage of a shader tree

[Per-Anders]

a good node based shader tree gives total control, i.e. in maya each image and texture has it's own map and is added into the network. also you can reuse the same information multiple times throughout a network and now have to worry about copying and pasting info back and forth like you do in c4d currently (going through the fusions and inbetween each channel copying and pasting the same noise for instance, that you've just changed one small parameter on), instead you just link up all the parameters to teh one node, this means one change chagnes all the parameters, also when it comes to rendering it's faster, this is because the program only had ot calculate that information once for each and every channel, not multiple times (as it currently does in c4d).

t also allows you to use other nodes in the mix, things that weren't originally designed for the purpose, multiply nodes, stuff like that, iteration nodes, you can even use node based networks to make your own custom shaders, see darktree/symbiont, or for instance in maya i've seen a sub surface scattering node that someone produced using the shader network system...

i really hope that if someone produces a shader network system for c4d it wont be half assed, that it'll enable you to make thigns a complex or simple as you like, just as in XSI or Maya, not just textures and ramps, but projection systems, sampler nodes, surface sampling, control ever everything including post effects, camera control (for lens distortion based on textures), contorl of post effects for stuff like glows etc, and finally please somoene give us refraction texture control... in fact it needs to be as extensible as maya's shader system (wherre every parameter can have any other parameter inputted into it, form numbers, through to textures, and it knows and understands what's going on, total UV control... well we shall see if that ever comes about... anyhow should be interesting.

[michaeli]

Thanks very much for the detailed explaination. :thumbsup:
Hope Maxon put the shader tree into the next upgrade, it is so powerful! :beer:

[DeathCarrot]

or we could somehow integrate it into xpresso... well, there's limited (very limited) node capability in terms of texturing in xpresso, it wouldn'd be too hard to add all the SLA stuff into it, and so on... or am i on the completely wrong tracks? :shrug:

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by DeathCarrot
or we could somehow integrate it into xpresso... well, there's limited (very limited) node capability in terms of texturing in xpresso, it wouldn'd be too hard to add all the SLA stuff into it, and so on... or am i on the completely wrong tracks? :shrug:

I think that would be the way to go. For expressions, Xpresso already does most of what Mdm Sadie described; if Maxon expands it and fully integrates it with the rest of the package, it would rock.

To get good photorealism, you need to have good textures and lighting. Improving the texturing tools in Cinema would as a result offer better image quality, essentially by allowing the users more access to the render engine's existing capabilities.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by Thalaxis
I think that would be the way to go. For expressions, Xpresso already does most of what Mdm Sadie described; if Maxon expands it and fully integrates it with the rest of the package, it would rock.


As I have said before I think thats maxon's intention, that expresso is sort of a uilding block that I think they will expand on to the rest eventually. Who know's though, we can always dream

[ThirdEye]

Kai we miss your costant presence here :hmm:

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