TLHPro - WIP Thread

#61

I can already see some interesting possibilities with this, Thomas … hope you’re feeling better. Ich bin ser krank. :slight_smile:

#62

Chikega: Thanks, I’m feeling fine again. It was just the one little cold one catches every year :slight_smile:

While refining the TLHPro:Wireframe shader, I do a lot of tests and I thought you may find this one interesting:

I am now finished with implementing several ways of smoothing the wireframe, and an interesting side-use of the separate, smoothed outputs (there are separate outputs for Wires, Dots and Polys, in a way often referred to as “Straight Alpha” - the color is full opaque but combined with the available alpha it is getting correctly smoothed and transparent) is, that you can use the smoothed wire alpha as bump map to get an effect like above where the wireframe looks as if it has real thickness. But this is just the great bumpmapping in messiah.
Rendered in messiah:studio 2.0c with 1 pointlight, a HDRI reflection map and anisotropic highlights… :slight_smile:
Rendertime was rather high with 10 Minutes, since the AA had a hard time with the bright HDRI reflections, so I had to use 4xAA and no adaptive.
Without HDRI and bumpmapping, I was able to render the image in 1 minute or below with 2xAA.

I hope you like it.

Cheers! :bowdown:

#63

Looks absolutely stunning!!! Congratulations!!! :applause:

Huge industrial landscapes could be such a perfect use. If it was possible to combine the wireframes with some noise and the weightSpot node to break it at certain places or make it grummy at others…wow…huge potential! :bounce:

#64

Wow, Thomas - that looks incredible. It looks totally 3dimensional. I agree with Taron - this would be perfect for the industrial landscape or perhaps a huge space station. Amazing! :slight_smile:

#65

Thanks guys.
Yes, as long as it stays rather distant, you could do a lot of construction stuff with it. I still hope to find a way to project the original mesh as wires onto the subdivided mesh, since that would allow for much more control and other polys than triangles while staying smooth… But maybe I should move this to later versions…

OK, now I am diving into the polygon coloring options. While normal color selection or providing a color through the input need no further explanation, I found a funny use for the “random” poly coloring I have showed before:

Since this color mode uses the original polyIDs (the only thing remaining after subdivision), you can have smoothed polygons. Now I thought it would be fun to use the random color value for displacement. And since each original poly uses one solid color, this is the first practical use for the crack issues :bounce:
This can be used for rather impressive motiongraphics or some tool deconstruction. Since directional displacement isn’t possible yet, it can’t be controlled in more detail, but maybe in later versions this can grow into some serious fun…
This poly coloring miss-use is combined with a TLHPro:Distance shader to allow for no displacement at the start of the spiral and then blending with a bias curve into the full displaced polys…
And sure this is fully animateable …

Prepare for more :slight_smile:

Cheers!

Thomas Helzle

#66

Back to the wireframe it is. Thanks to a tip from Lyle, I am now able to not only render the smoothed main mesh over the subdivided mesh, but also, as a byproduct, I found out how to render quadrangles instead of the original triangles that messiah uses for subdivisons which in a lot of situation looks much cooler!
This is just a first, simple example but stay tuned - the subdivided main mesh rendering is unbelievable cool.

Thanks, Lyle, for leading the way!!! :bounce:

The mesh uses 6 subdivisions, Rendertime was 2 minutes with AA 4x4.

Cheers! :bowdown:

#67

the quadrangle tool is really nice …
should be really handfull for show reel wirframe shot !!

#68

That kicks Major ass Thomas. . . Good job.

#69

Can you say “sweetness”, i thought you could!

Hey what about the XSi or LW “modeler shaded wirefame look”. Nice Black lines over the mesh when its subdivided or metanurbed? Or maybe you already got it…you got a character you can slapped that on. Put it on Taron’s butch character.

#70

Thanks guys! I also think it is a major improvement over the normal wireframe look :slight_smile:

Julez4001: That is easy to do, stay tuned.

After staying up all night with the wicked UV-reconstruction problem and finally getting it to work with something like 200 lines of code, Lyle gave me the solution in 3 lines…
hahahaha - it seems to really help if you know what the software is actually doing :slight_smile:

Oh joy :bounce:

OK, here it goes anyway. As I promised before, the tool will give you UVs for the original mesh polys on the subdivided mesh. So all you spaceship-addicts can map a hull-tile or rivets or crates or whatever on the mesh. Since it uses the original polygons, you will need to model a rather good mesh to prevent stretching, but other than that, you can have every kind of wireframe or wicked stuff that you can imagine.

As a first teaser, I did the following example:

Another version with a bit of post to give it a more game-like look:

This is basically a small image of a manhole cover tiled on every polygon. :slight_smile:

Cheers!

Thomas Helzle

#71

THOMAS!!!
OMG!!!
IT’s SO VERY very Very BEAUTIFUL!!!:bowdown:
Congratulations and thank you! I’m utterly delighted, can’t say it any other way!
Fantastic looking …thing…gorgeous! :bounce:

#72

EXTREMLY COOL THOMAS!!!
I see endless possilities!!
Wooww!

#73

WOW!!! that is VERY VERY (etc…) COOL!! :smiley:

Thanks

Serg

#74

Wow - I see you are as excited as I am :wink:
Yes, “Endless Posibilities” is what comes to mind…
and even more to come :slight_smile:

Thank you very much guys - your cool feedback really helps my tired eyes… :bounce:

Cheers!

#75

thomas looks great…you’ve probably already covered stuff like this anyway…but gonna suggest them anyways…just discard as appropriate.

isoparms wire
isoparms and wire

select only U
select only V
directions wire lines.

maybe some form of hatching/stroke setup might be possible from this also?

various forms of tesselation but only via texture as opposed to geometry.

dunno…might help…might not…either way like what you did with the last few…and like the idea of selective points/lines etc.

#76

Isoparms (the main or cage mesh projected on the subdivided mesh) are already there - if you want isoparms at the same time as the subdivided wires, you may need to use two nodes. Otherwise my tool will become a bit “overcrowded” :wink:

U and V direction are rather random at this stage, since they are derived from your mesh depending on how you built it -> pointorder (at least this is what I assume from my experiments). You can see that from the rather random rotation of the manhole covers in the images above. But U/V direction only is already on my list and I will see if it works well enough to put it in.

Hatching/Stroke like stuff is already possible with plugging nodes in the Wire/Dot thickness input. I currently look into the options for an “offset” input. Not sure if it will work though.

Since you can do with textures whatever you want, it is up to you to find exciting “tessellations”. I will post some examples later, but the UV-Feature should give you tons of options here.

The Wires/Dots can also be colored with a gradient or used as alphas or bumps and now I finally try to get them to wash up my dishes :wink: :bounce:

Cheers and thanks for the feedback!

#77

Those shaders are fantastic. Nice work Thomas :thumbsup:

C´mon. Remember your game against Gurevich, Munich 1993. You know how to put all the parts together :slight_smile: :wink:

#78

Hot damn!!! :bounce::bounce::bounce:

#79

Thomas, your ‘little helpers’ get more impressive every day! :thumbsup:

A suggestion/question: Would it be possible to create an animated effect of a ‘stroke by stroke’ drawing (i.e. at first the object is invisible and then the outlines get revealed, as if drawn by hand) ? I guess one probably has to use a ‘WeightSpot’ node for that.

@SpikeWorx: Thanx for reminding me of that game, it’s a pleasant memory. Still, I think that chess is easier than creating shaders - chess is 2D and black & white only, while shaders are 3D and coloured !:smiley:

#80

:bowdown: Interesting and exciting times ahead - thanks again for the sweet comments :slight_smile:

Now I just can’t stop rendering with the UV feature and I thought you guys may love it too, so here goes some massive image post:

To help you guys with the more black and white oriented mind (just joking :slight_smile: ) I made up some simpler renderings that show the effect rather pure.
This is just the Isoparms/Cage mesh wireframe rendered on top of slightly randomized polys. Linewidth here is UV-based so bigger Polys have thicker lines. Slight linesmoothing is used:

This one reminds me a bit of some tin toys. Again, it is the main polys only, but this time the Lines are 1.) colored with a gradient from black to yellow to transparent. 2.) Linethickness is modulated by an AoN:Turbulence node. The amount and look of the effect can be varied by using different shaders and it even looks cool with much larger settings… :

All of the following images use no wire or dots, but just the UV-mapping feature. This first one uses a rough drawn image frame as a “wireframe”. Paint your own wires and just slap it on :slight_smile: :

Here I was browsing my harddrive for tileable stuff, and I like the look of these Bathtiles:

For all the spacecraft addicts - I actually found a “plates” texture that I have downloaded somewhere. It doesn’t tile too good, but you should get the idea. To prevent stretching, you would have to invest more time in planing your model than I did:

… continue to the next post…