Hello all. A couple of years ago I purchased Shader Spider by Poseworks and then promptly forgot about it. I recently started dabbling in it and it's inner workings are quit the mystery to me. I am wondering if anyone has used the app and created presets that they would be willing to share. Or, does anyone know of any websites were such presets might be found. The Poseworks site is largely out of date (the last post was 2007).

Thanks all.

I use it all the time but what do you mean create presets?

Umm, I wouldn't use it to make DS (Daz Studio) presets with it, it simply don't work.  In fact, it makes so called DS shaders/mat files look worse then Poser mats in DS .  I've already proven it to some vendors around here by showing what their products looked like in DS.  I asked what they were using, in which they all replied "Shader Spider".

...wolfie

Opening a can of worms... :biggrin:
...so Shader Spider is not the answer to making shaders in DS? And the current Shader Mixer-still-in-beta tool is completely mystifying to Poser mat-room developers... has anything been published anywhere to help transition from Poser to DS? I'm not talking about translating shaders: I'm refering to helping those of use accustomed to Poser's mat room to write/develop similar shaders for DS....

I honestly don't know if there's anything that makes DS shaders correctly (and seriously doubt it).  Heck, I don't know any programs that makes Poser materials correctly.  I don't mean to open a can of worms at all lol, I'm just saying it's not wise to use Shader Spider as a DS shader maker.  They make clothes and characters very odd & shiny looking  Since the content creator used them, I doubt they even know how to open DS, so therefore, they won't know how to look at their products in DS correctly.  You have to load some decent lightsets to see what they actually look like in a render.  If you don't load any lights, it takes all shine away, but when you do load them, be prepared to wear some sunglasses lol.  I've even commented that they look like Christmas tree lights before LOL.

I think the best choice is to have an experienced DS user do the DS shaders.  There are plenty around that are willing to do that for you, I do them already for a few vendors and they're very happy with the results (showing them the matching renders against DS & Poser with a matching lightset).

I didn't know Poser, and wasn't about to go blindfolded making Poser nodes for Tindra Thompson, so I asked around for an experienced Poser user, which gypsyangel answered.  She did a wonderful job too!!

...wolfie

Shader-Spider is such a useful tool inside Poser - I wouldn't be without it. I can't begin to imagine how much time it's saved me in applying shaders to multiple groups.

Hmm... why didn't I think of this... when I did my character in Poser 6 (her pose files), I had to save them as mc6 then edit them & change the file names.  Does Shader Spider save them as pz2 for you?  And where do I get it?

...wolfie

Shader Spider can save as:

Poser 4 PZ2
Poser Pro PZ2
Poser 5 PZ2
Poser 6 MC6

www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/shaderspider

Says in the details it only works in P6 & P7, but I'm happily using it in P8 (can't remember if there was some kind of fix to enable this)

Shader Spider is totally worth every penny I paid for it.  It's so quick and really easy.

Thanks guys, I only have P6, and saving as pz2 rather then mc6 is what I'm looking for instead of having to go back and edit in text editors and renaming them.  But I'll look into the other options listed (had no idea it was at Daz3D and I'm there all the time hehe)

...wolfie

I guess what I'm asking is this. If I go into the materials menu and load the ShaderSpider Wacros I get a menu of buttons. One of the buttons is "Load Partial Shader (FX6)". When I push this I get a selection of presets including "Blue Glowing Veins", "Chunky", "Lightning", etc...
These are what I mean by presets. Has anyone created new and different "presets" that they have posted to other sites or are willing to share here? I have yet to figure out how to create my own. Has anyone created any tutorials on how to use this complex product?

Thanks.

Have to admit I've very rarely used the partial shaders and not created any either.

From what I gather you wire together a set of nodes to create a specific effect (with no other nodes on the material you're working on). When you save the FX6 file you're given the option of where those nodes will plug into on the root node when you load it. Presumably if you load that partial shader onto a material that already has something plugged into that root node the FX6 will relace it, leaving everything else intact.

Should all be in the SS documentation.

I haven't even started messing with that yet. But I just might :P

I'm thinking (could be way off base) that you just create a node based shader then save it as a .fx.

If I come up with anything I'll let ya know. :)