requests for nextgen texture work.

[artman]

(I know shader baker is really new,so maybe some of my request are already on your to-do list.)

1-Be able to bake only shader (with shader's normal map,but without the whole voxel sculpt details(only the shader bump not the complete normal map)

It is useful when user want to go back to voxel sculpt,change the shader,bake the new shader ,and then blend the layers in texture work.

2-send shader normal map with(inside) color layer as depth instead of it being prisoner of the main normalmap .( it is to go along request 1 )

3-more shaders options(when editing shaders) :load multiple textures and normal maps with blending sliders,ability to add alpha map to blend between those textures,maybe even add there the very good fractal and procedural stuff you made for fill tool,also be able to rotate the wrapping.

In all,my fantasy would be a way to edit shaders in 3DC in such a way that it would be like a real material editor ,a laboratory for users to "coat" their models.

(Im going a little crazy here,sorry )

4-also if you would implement the ability to load external shaders from files in formats used in game industry,I think peoples would buy 3DCoat just for that,just like now with the retopology tools.

5- a heal brush in painting tools would be a very welcomed addition to 3DC's arsenal

and would complement the coating idea very well.(texture artists will need to break up the tiled aspect of textured shaders,this is where clone brush and healing brush become useful)

6-glow map display is the only missing element in 3DC maps .You can probably add this to

render room easily as a post effect associated with a specific layer the user would choose.

Maybe it is not that easy..I dont know.

It is little early for feature request on this subject...but I didnt want to forget my ideas.

[artman]

more ideas.....

1-please add a "cavity intensity" setting (see picmat_redwax) inside "marble" shader.

2-also a bump-to-normal map conversion tool would be cool and useful

[artman]

I found solution to point 1 and 2 of my first post.

It seems that putting the 2 normal maps in difference mode in Photoshop and converting the result to grayscale works !!

In DP I imported the result as displacement inside the voxel color layer and the result is very good.

No seams and very sharp details.(I'm very surprised,I thought I would need something like crazybump to do that,but a simple convert to grayscale seems to give good results.)

I can now use the clone brush on baked shader color+bump without problems

Here is shot of shader color+displacement layer(from grayscale difference map)

And here is shader color+displacement layer + the normal map(without shaderbump)

So now when I use the clone brush it is like painting real marble.

Doing this kind of work with the stamp brush and pens alone would be very long job.

Also,the previewing of shader scale and editing is much more faster than the Filling tool,and it works on multimillion pieces.You get realtime hires filling tool.

Now,if we could assign multiple shaders to a single voxel layer it would be terrific wouldnt it?

[GED]

(I know shader baker is really new,so maybe some of my request are already on your to-do list.)

4-also if you would implement the ability to load external shaders from files in formats used in game industry,I think peoples would buy 3DCoat just for that,just like now with the retopology tools.

6-glow map display is the only missing element in 3DC maps .You can probably add this to

render room easily as a post effect associated with a specific layer the user would choose.

Maybe it is not that easy..I dont know.

I really agree with these 2 points! not sure how easy or hard these are to do but definitely something to be considered, its one of the main selling points of mudbox 2009 that you can view proper shaders in the viewport while painting.

[David Walters]

artman, I never thought of docking the pens along the width of the viewport like that - this has been a great improvement for me - thanks!

Even though you weren't posting about that specifically, !! (I've also put the materials and masks panels there too, it works well)