AoB - Real Curvature Shader

Hy there,

my latest plugin, the Real Curvature Shader for Windows is now available:

Take me there!

Citation from the website:

• New very fast and robust core, allows good and fast results also for very challenging objects.
• Smoothing Methods: Normal Smoothing / Smoothing / Wind / Blur
• Influence Modes for dependence on a position in space or by the active view vector or an objects z-direction.
• Create dirt maps of all kinds! With the full angle control combined with wind, you can distribute dirt, scratches, rust or abrasion regions, wherever you need them.
• Some more buzzwords: Hardsurface, Organic, Weathering, Morell
• No UV mapping necessary, very useful for complex objects and the use of procedural textures.
• Statistics: Get an overview how the actual curvature values are distributed.
• New Distortion Shader Slot: Apply distortions by curvature! Allows to mix in also 3D Volume Shaders, so also this approach can be used without UVW Mapping!
• With a little tweaking, effects close to Ambient Occlusion or Subsurface Scattering, can also be achieved.
• For artistic use with deforming objects (animations).

More detailed information can be found in the manual here or on the homepage.

Regards,
André

No Mac version.

Awesome! But, is real curvature shader like a major update for surface curvature shader? I'm confused, how do the plugins differ, other than in speed and quality improvements?

Don't want to sound like a buzz-kill, I'll probably end up purchasing this one as well (even though I bought surface curvature shader back when it first came out, and have still not used it once )

Also, if I were to pay for real curvature shader, would I still need surface curvature installed to achieve certain things?

Here I already mentioned the difference:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpos...41&postcount=34

In the meantime, quite some new features got added to the RCS. As it was a full rebuild, it is a new product. But for buyers of the SCS, as you can read in the above post, the RCS is quite a lot cheaper, see on the homepage.

The tools are absolutely independent. So SCS does not need RCS and the other way around...

Hi maxx

Is rcs supporting baked smoothing / normal tags ?
As i am often wrking with Cad and nurbs geomtry , this would be a big buying argument.

Knd regards

Yes, I long for mac version aswell...

Ah, good idea!

I will check this in the evening, guess its an easy addition. In case Cinema does not automatically use those normals, I can for sure read them in.

Cheers,
André

maxx you would make me really happy with that
i would owe you one

Indeed. Looks great. Wallet ready when there is a Mac version...

I had a look if it is possible to use the normal tag to enhance the curvature calculation.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to use the additional information to improve the calculation. For the calculation of a reflection for example, it is no problem, as this is solely based on the normal. But in the case of the curvature calculation, each triangle is analyzed and certain properties are calculated (like Voronoi Cells). So the individual triangles still contain the error.

There are more reasons, why it does not work. The curvature value at a vertex is dependent on the surrounding vertices. Imagine a sphere, which gets cut into pieces. You also have a normal tag from the tool that cut the geometry. Now you can, even though the geometry is now made of several closed volume pieces (and pretty bad normals), still render a perfect surface, as you only need the normals directly on the surface, where we know the correct values from the baked normal tag.

For the calculation of curvatures, things are more complicated. You have to estimate curvatures for each of the closed volume pieces, which means, also the new vertices inside the sphere will contribute to the calculation of values which lie on the surface, which of course is not what we want in this case.

So the best precondition for estimating curvatures is still a good mesh. This means, the surface should be connected everywhere, no doubled points and faces. The irregularity of the tessellation can be quite big and you still get a good estimation.

Cheers,
André

looks very good, if it works with vray i guess i buy it. have you tested?

stefan

It works very well with VRay.

People will use it for a variety of tasks, I personally use it to age textures with great ease.

Very quick example;
Left: is using dirt/fresnel mask/few cheap tricks.
Right: using Curvature shader and some layering effects.
Both: One wood texture/cubic projection/ no UV maps generated.



I haven't tried out all the new features of the Real Curvature Shader yet, but it appears I could quite easily accomplish a lot more edge definition and a less uniform aged look quite easily.

Yes, no restrictions (that I am aware of). Anything that can work with a Cinema-Shader, can also work with the RCS.

Are you dodging the Mac requests since you have addressed this yet?

Hy Neil,

I currently can't create a mac build. I already checked the amount of work it would create and currently I just can't spend that much time.

If the situation changes, I will for sure drop a note here.

Cheers,
André