Darktree (symbiont-plug) and R8

[sulian]

stable in R8 :thumbsup: but i have some artefacts during the render. :thumbsdow

Sulian

[Spearhead]

I use it alot in r8 and the only thing ive noticed is that it renders black where polygons arent aligned. Not a bad thing since it´s a reminder to check your mesh once again =P

Dont know if this was an issue in previous version of c4d.

[flingster]

thanks people...
what are your thoughts on darktree ? like it /dislike it? is it worth the expense when i already have sla etc?

also what features of darktree don't work in cinema...usually there is some things that don't seem to work when you bring a shader in to different software packages via the plugin as far as i can tell from reading some of the info on the other plugin versions. will it really affect what you do....what sort of learning curve is involved or is it fairly easy to pick up?

thanks once again.
:beer:

[AdamT]

One caveat--I haven't upgraded to 2.5 yet.

Darktree is an awesome program. You can jump in and start making cool shaders with very little effort, but like any shader app. you need to do more thinking and experimenting to really get control of it. In other words (generally speaking), you can make nice shaders just mucking about, but if you have a specific result in mind beforehand it takes some know-how to make it a reality.

DT can do a few tricks that SLA can't, and v.v.

* DT has some nice randomizing features that SLA doesn't have;
* DT lets you control many parameters with splines, which SLA can't do. For instance, you can change the bevel in a brick bump map with a spline;
* DT has a number of nice noise functions that SLA doesn't have;
* DT is more flexible in terms of animation;
* DT has a bitmap renderer so you can easily render out each channel of your procedural and use it as a bitmap material (faster);
* DT has much nicer preview functions;
* DT has its own user group (Yahoo) in which the developers actively participate and answer questions;
* DT shaders can be used cross-platform in C4D, Max, LW, A:M, Renderman (beta), and trueSpace.

OTOH

* SLA has some nice noise functions DT doesn't have;
* SLA can get information from scene objects, allowing for trick shaders like Proximal (DT can only read camera data);
* SLA seems to render faster than DT;
* SLA is owned by Maxon, so the chances are very good that it will better integrated in the future, and maybe even developed into a shader tree system.


Of course the obvious advantage of DT is it's tree gui, which makes experimentation much easier than with SLA. I tend to make more complex shaders in DT even if I could do similar in SLA, just because it's so much easier.

If you're interested definitely check out the demo!

[kmwhitt]

Adam:


You mentioned Darktree had a user's group via Yahoo..... I can't find it during a search of Yahoo's groups.

Thanks for any help!

[AdamT]

Originally posted by kmwhitt
Adam:


You mentioned Darktree had a user's group via Yahoo..... I can't find it during a search of Yahoo's groups.

Thanks for any help!

Oops, my bad. It's a mailing list. The mails get sent to my Yahoo e-mail account, hence the confusion.

[flingster]

hey AdamT comprehensive as usual and just the sort of info i was looking for....thanks alot..appreciate it bud.
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[H. Ikeda]

Hi,

Thanks for very clear discussions.
I've updated simbiont to 2.5 the other day and it doesn't show some artifacts appeared before.
I think it's fair to compare simbiont shaders (not DarkTree) with SLA shaders.
These shaders seem different types, in the sense that SLA offers intentional ambiguity for its usage while simbiont gives clear and specific application for each shader.
And one thing I'm sure is that both are awesome!

Cheers,:)

[flingster]

cheers hiroshi....:thumbsup:

[Ben Sones]

I can't seem to get Simbiont shaders to render at in HDR renders. Anyone else have this problem? Do they only react to stabdard lights? With a no-light HDRI-sphere scene (as per the Maxon tutorial), all of my Simbiont-shaded objects render completely black.

Using R8.206. Any suggestions?

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