Hey everyone, I thought I’ll give you a first look at the new Grids&Wires shader coming with the upcoming update to 2.4b.
new Grids&Wires shader
Taron333
#4
Really? Hmmm…ok
Grids&Wires.mp
Mini-docs:
outputs:
[ul]
[li]Opacity (the usual, hardly ever use it)
[/li][li]Color (edge color and alpha blendable black surface)
[/li][li]value (edge values from 0 - 1.0)
[/li][/ul]
inputs:
[ul]
[li]Opacity (of course, this I actually use a lot)
[/li][li]Color (if you’d like to texture the grid’s edges’ color)
[/li][li]Alpha (texturing the blending of the black surface)
[/li][li]Width (width of the edges)
[/li][li]Size (size of the grid (scaler))
[/li][li]X_spacing (spacing between the edges along X axis)
[/li][li]Y_spacing (spacing between the edges along Y axis)
[/li][li]Z_spacing (spacing between the edges along Z axis)
[/li][li]X_offset (offsetting the edges along X axis)
[/li][li]Y_offset (offsetting the edges along Y axis)
[/li][li]Z_offset (offsetting the edges along Z axis)
[/li][/ul]
parameters:
grid type:
[ul]
[li]local grid (default)(grid along local axis’ of object)
[/li][li]world grid (grid along world coordinates)
[/li][li]polygon wires (grid along polygon edges of low-poly cage)
[/li][/ul]
edge width/edge perc:
[ul]
[li]edge width (local/world grid modi) (width = actual value)
[/li][li]edge perc (polygon wires) (perc = percentage of the polygon size)
[/li][/ul]
grid spacings and offsets should be clear!
Brick checkbox behind offsets is for brick style offset of every other row of grid cells.
Reference Obj is just what it says it is and modifies local and world grids based on position, rotation and scaling!
Edge:
[ul]
[li]hard (no feathering, straight value of 1.0 and color on edge)
[/li][li]linear (linear feather of edge based on width or perc! Good for gradient feeding!)
[/li][li]smooth (smoothstep on feathering)
[/li][li]piped (inverse exponential on feathering)
[/li][/ul]
Cross:
[ul]
[li]intersect (cross section of grid edges are stuck together)
[/li][li]accumulate (cross sections accumulate to a knob…thought it’s kinda interesting!?)
[/li][/ul]
No Displacement:
[ul]
[li]option to turn of displacement, if shader is hooked into bump and should not effect displacement. This is interesting in case somebody wants to texture the subdivision level in polygon wires mode. Any Subdivision level that is fractional or simply not flat (1.0, 2.0, 3.0…) will cause problems with displacements. But it can look very cool…that’s why I put that option in! …
[/li][/ul]
AAAron
#7
First of all this is great because its some thing thats been missing! :bounce:
I´m going to make something to show but first two small things.
It only works on metanurbed objects, or I am missing something.
It would be great with a inverse color button so you don´t have to put in a “TLH invert node” if you want to use the color output for the opacity on the objects and make a regular “wireframe style render”.
Edit: Of course I could just add a black matte node below in the opacity input and let the wire node be white… 
One thing that makes this really cool compared to have a wireframe rendermode is that you can make transitions between rendered surface and wire in 3d instead of 2d in you comp app.
isobarxx
#10
Nice! I don’t quite understand what hard edges do. In the attached image the render on the left is smooth edges, and the one on the right is the same settings, but with hard edges. You’re looking at the edge of a subdivided cube.
Taron333
#11
isobarxx:
3d grid textures can look confusing sometimes! it’s perfectly alright! The hard-edge has no falloff and as a result, although you weren’t noticing that before, the cube’s side that is facing us still got a little of the width you had set for the edge width. Check your Z_spacing and play with it. You’ll see!
By the way, if you set any of the spacing’s to zero, the axis will be switched off!
AAAaron,
I had thought about it and dismissed it so far, because it’s actually very often best to use it with gradients and so little of a problem to use the min/max shader as opposed to TLH tools, because you can fine-tune the values to your liking as well. I wanted to keep the interface as simple and as clean as possible and didn’t know how to label it best either.
Also, use the value output if you want to feed any parameter other than colors of some kind. I think I will put a little min/max option into the shader, too, hoping that I can find a clear and obvious way of labeling that and placing that as well. :wip:
The polygon wires should work on every object, but I honestly have only tested it on metanurbed wires…
Thanx everyone, already! Very cool!
Taron
AAAron
#14
Thanks for the tips! Min max works well. But I confirmed that polywires only works on metanurbed objects.
Taron333
#15
Hmmm…that’s a good info. I’ll check it out. Maybe I’ll call it “meta wires” in the very soon to come update for the “Grids&Wires” shader. I’ve had a number of great requests and will hook them in!
WesComan
#17
Here’s a little test using a Meta Effector and a Weight Spot node to locally inverse the grid shader and alter the width…
I also used a couple of MinMax nodes to boost/control the effect, and of course the meta effector can be animated 
Taron333
#18
That’s AWESOME! Hahaha, I love it! :applause: :bounce:
I really like how physical and touchable it looks…kind of amazing that the grid cells come out of it so damn clean. Very nice! Would certainly make a fun animation, too. Reminds me to some japanese siggraph demo or so…hehehe…very cool!
Rock on! :buttrock: …and Thanx! MORE!!! :wip:
whitecaps
#20
Whoaaa! amazing AAAron… looks so real! :buttrock:
any chance you can share your scene or settings?