Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=349

Hi All, Ive been playing around with Anything Grooves from DCG (www.digitalcarversguild.com) for Carrara and its very, very cool. The walls in the above image are just two cube primitives with AG applied to them using a custom shader I created. The stairs are a simple spline object. With bump maps only, cast shadows always appear as smooth lines; even on rough surfaces. Not too believable. Anything Grooves fixes that. Check out the shadow cast across the steps or the way the light shines through the mortar gaps on the corner of the bricks and hits bumps on the shadow side. The best part is being able to deform curved objects like the stairs without doing any vertex work. If you can use surfaces/shaders like these in your own work, the ones used here and others are available in a shader pack Ive posted at: http://www.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=3493 Mark

Nice!

Really nice! Now if I can just master Abything Grooves i'll be set. Great image Mark. kaom

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=3493

Great work you've done on the shaders pack, Mark ! I'm reposting the link to your product, as the one you posted didn't work . Good luck ! litst

Yes, Very nice Mark. I need to pick up Anything Grooves as well as MBGroove. ;) Clint

Indeed, very well done. I've thought you'd been rather busy lately! I could have used that no-skid metal plate several months ago for work, ended up buying an image from Corbis for $60.00 (and rejecting the one I did over the course of 2-3 hours). Now all I need to do is win that plug-in!

Thanks for the kind words! Thanks also Litst for posting the correct link. (There is a dented spot on my computer desk where I hit my head after doing something like that) Mark

Hey Mark, I just bought MBGroove! I just thought of something, they are for PC too right? I noticed they are zipped in .SIT format, I hope I didn't just buy a Mac only product. If you get this medssage today, let me know, otherwise I'm up a creek. kaom

Kaom - There is a MAC version and a PC version. I just checked the sales records and YES you purchased the MAC version. DOH! Lets see how Mark wants to handle this. Either Mark or I will get you the PC version. Mark - Do you want me to get the PC version to Kaom or will you take care of that? Clint Renderosity Administration

Mark - I just updated the product descriptions for MBGroove to MBGroove (PC Only) and MBGroove (MAC Only). So maybe it will be better marked for future customers. :) FYI only, Clint

Clint, Thnaks for responding so soon. I deeply appreciate it. I didn't see a choice for Mac or PC. Crap! Getting me the PC version will be a big help. I just deleted what I downloaded,since it's of no use to me. If you get the PC version today, that would make my day! Agakn, Thank you. kaom DOH! Now there's an even bigger dent on my desk, where (I) banged my head for being such a Pod! Again-DOH!

It's taken care of Clint. Thanks! Mark

Thank you Mark! I deleted the original .SIT file, but I had already expanded them to another folder, whew! Got em, thank god. Now I can start using them, after I network em over to the workstation. I scared myself for a minute there. You guys rock! I give this customer service an 11, some of the best I've ever had. Fast, effective and very helpful. Thanks, kaom

All is well, Mark sent me the .exe file, thanks guys! Renderosity is great to deal with. kaom

Wonderful! Thanks Mark. Now - Kaom...Throw up some images using MBGroove. ;) Clint

You got it! I will as soon as I can pry myself away from working on my roadster. I can't wait. Thanks, kaom

Mark, I', lost. I applied some to some simple stuff and it looks very pixellated. I can't adjust how big these textures are on the object, tiling has no effect. What am I doing wrong? How do I adjust the size of the planks, so there are more of them going across the floor? I really want to master this Anything Grooves thing, but so far it's kicked my but all over the place.

OK, I've been playing around with em. Let me see if I'm doing this right. Here's what I'm doing: Step 1- I make my object. Step 2- I drag the texture map of the MBGrooves shader onto my object. Step 3- Then I drag the corresponding MBGroove Black/White texture to the sequencer into shaders. step 4- I select my object, then go to Anything Grooves in the Browser, and type on the name of the MBGroove B/W shader and hit enter. Step 5- It applies Anything Grooves to my object. So far so good? Step 6- I try to change the tiling of the master shadr for the object, but it won't work. Am I going about this right? My example of the boards is what I'm talking about. The texture is too big for the object, normally with a regular map, I would just adjust the tiling until it looked OK and wasn't blown up and pixelllated. But it's not letting me for all of the MBGrooves texture maps, nothing happens when I adjust the tiling sliders. What are the secrets of this? Do I have to make smaller objects? I don't think so! How do Iadjust the size of the Shader that Anything Grooves is using? I'm frusrated,confused, lost and banging my head! PLEASE HELP! Am i doing this whole thing wrong? Thanks, kaom

Yea, that looks funky alright. There are two things going on here. I'll deal with the first on in this post and the second one in the next post. 1. It looks like you accidently used the Groove texture map for the Shader. 2.The steps you listed above in your last post look like the should work. However, here is an image to help clarify. 3. Your camera is really, really close to the object; let's go to the next post.

Texture maps. I love them. I hate them. They bring great reality to imagery but also come with some strings attached. If you are going to have the camera sitting on the surface of the T-map, the ones that come with MBGrooves aren't high enough in resolution. In fact, for that kind fidelity, a texture map weighing in at about 15 to 30 Megs is what you will need! So, how do you deal with it? 1. Make sure that the "interpolate" check box is activated in the texture map shader window. 2. Tile the T-map. I'm guessing that you overlooked the "Tile" check box. Maps are maps and all of them will tile if Carrara is enabled to tile them. The ones with MBGroove are no different. 3. Extra step: Remember that you will also have to tile the "Groove" shader correspondingly to the the "Texture" shader. Also, some of the MBGroove shaders use 5 similar but different T-maps for diffusion, highlight, bump, reflection and color. All of them will have to be tiled into harmony. 4. Great tip: multiply a procedural shader (spots) to the bump channel and use the slider in the texture map window to reduce the texture map influence. The folks at Industrial light and magic use this technique all the time on planes to disguise repeating patterns. For whatever reason, bump maps made from texture maps get ugly faster up close than the color T-maps do. This is the tecnique is used in the post above. 5. Play with lights and reduce the ambient light. The whole idea behind these tools (AG and MBG) is to show off irregular surfaces. Shining lights dead-on doesn't do that. Cast them across the surface instead. Hope this stuff helps man! Mark

Thanks Mark, I'll play with them tonight and see what I can come up with. One question. The skid plate steel texture- I see little black lines of the diamond shape when I try to tile it. And should the UV samples In AG stay at 128 & 128? I go at it again and see what happens. I'll let you know if I figure it out. I appreciate your patience and help! kaom

All shaders need to be played with a little to perfect them for any given scene, MBGroove included. 128, 256, 512 1024? Use whatever looks best in your scene. I'm guessing that the little black lines you see are because the Color texture map has been tiled but not the bump texture map. Check to see if they are all in harmony. It checks out all right on this end at any rate.

Whoops I posted the wrong image for the above post here is the image that was meant to go with it. Mark it's amazing what being tired can make a person do. I was adjusting the tiling in the bump and other channels but not the color channel. I hadn't noticed the triangle for the color channel. DUH! I think I got it working.but now I've notice something else what am i doing wrong. I'm doing exactly what you said, and I'm making sure of it. But this is wierd and I don't understand it. Your expertise is needed once again. kaom

kaom, Without looking at how the scene is set up in Carrara, this would be my guess. Your walls are Spline objects. The Spline modeler will create different shader layers for the sides, front and back of your object. It looks like the bump for the Anything Grooves shader is only in one of the layers. A second guess would be that it's a cube and you're using projection mapping, but not in the direction you want it. Another thing to keep in mind is that AG will displace in the direction of the normal. So sometimes getting boxy things to come out the way you want is a challenge. The Presmooth option on AGr will sometimes help to alleviate the problem, but can introduce it's own distortions. Good Luck, Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions http://digitalcarversguild.com

Mornin' Kaom, Get some sleep man! Here's whats going on in the above image. (Correct me if I'm wrong) It's how I reproduced your anomaly though. 1. You've inserted a cube primitive and then made it thinner by scaling it in one direction. The scaling also compresses the shader components including the Groove shader. It bunches up and looks horrible. or 2. You've created a spline object cube and then shortened the extrusion path. It compresses the mapping pattern just like scaling the cube. Don't do that. ;-) The very top image in this thread (the original one) uses a simple cube primitive that has been scaled a little but not as drastically as yours. The brick pattern and Groove pattern was tiled 4 times on my cube to get the results you see there. Another way to handle it is to use two planes with AG and MBG applied and build your own corner out of them. Unless I need to show the texture wrapping around a shape, I don't and use simple planes instead of cubes or primitives. Mark

I made the objects in the images form scaled cube primatives. You are correct. In my upper image I used two scaled cube primatives anf built a corner out of them and that was the result, I tiled the texture 4 times, and the UV coords in AG were 128&128. The lower one was juse one of the cube primatives not made into a corner. I tried it with a spline object and got horrible results. I did everything you sai Mark, but got these results. Ihave tried the presmooth and adaptive mesh options, What exactly are they, I don't really understand their functions exactly. What exactly do you mean when you say "use two planes with AG and MBG apllied and build your own corner out of it"? Can you clarify this with maybe a visual example? Thanks guys! You've been very helpful and patient with me, and I really appreciate it. I really want to get a handle on this, so I can use it to it's fullest. kaom

kaom, Here's what presmooth can do Normally AGr deforms the mesh in the direction of it's normal, which for a cube is straight out from the face. Presmooth smooths the normals before doing the deformation so that the normal points straight out from the edges, tilted 45 degrees from where it was. This helps keep the edges together, but does skew the deformation towards the edges a bit. Adaptive mesh just looks for places where it can use a few big facets instead of lots of little facets. Less facets = less memory, faster renders, and a more responsive Carrara. Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions http://digitalcarversguild.com

Eric thanks for the help. So for what I'm trying to do in my scene, should I have Presmooth turned off? And should I have Adaptive mesh turned off also? In the picture you gave here, is that what Mark wa syalking about when he said>> "use two planes with AG and MBG applied and build your own corner out of them"? Thank you, kaom

Kaom, In your scene, I would follow Mark's suggestion. Use some planes to create your corner. One plane for floor, one for left wall, one for back wall. You wouldn't have to use Presmooth, and Adaptive Mesh probably wouldn't help much. Here's a sample: If you want to show that outer corner, you'll probably have to do some manual work. Not sure how Mark did it, but you could export two planes grouped together as obj and then import and tweak in the vertex modeler. Good Luck, Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions http://digitalcarversguild.com

Eric, Thanks, I'll give that a shot. I think I understand what you did there and I will try that. Yeah, I'm wondering how Mark got that corner on the building to look so good, it's perfect. One way or another I will figure it out. Thanks for making this Plugin and thanks for you help! kaom

Hi Kaom, I just used a cube primitive with a little scaling. Hope seeing the settings helps. Mark

Thanks Mark, I was wonderif that corner was one cube or two, that explains it. I notice you have the V samples set to 350. Can you set these to any number up to 1024? I wa sunder the impression they had to be set to 128,256,512 etc... So I take it they can be set to any number? Does U and V affect the scaling of the AG shader? Thank you, kaom

kaom, You can set the U and V Samples to any number up to the limits of your system's memory. AGr will try to do as much as it can. If it runs out of memory, it will just return the original mesh with no deformation. U and V don't impact the scaling of the shader, it's just the number of samples it will use across the object's UV space. Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions http://digitalcarversguild.com