I just want to save the displacement node in a material. Is there anyway to do that? I hate having to write scripts for every little simple thing that should of been in poser to begin with.

Is this possible with shaderworks 2.5?

Hmm maybe I can save the whole material but then just edit the material and remove everything except the displacement node?

You can create your own fikle via script and save the node information.  You can edit an mt5 file to remove the other nodes, BUT, as far as I know Poser will discard the rest of the material and load only whats in the file.

What do you want to do with only a displacement node ?

If all you want is the displacement saved: Delete all other nodes in  your material. This will leave only the displacement node in place. Save the material to the Library. It's not that hard really.

Quote - If all you want is the displacement saved. Delete all other nodes in  your material. This will leave only the displacement node in place. Save the material to the Library. It's not that hard really. 

Let's say I do what you suggest. 

If I apply this material with ONLY the displacement node over a material with a diffuse & specular, will it remove the diffuse & specular or simply add the displacement in addition to the diffuse & specular?

Quote - You can create your own fikle via script and save the node information.  You can edit an mt5 file to remove the other nodes, BUT, as far as I know Poser will discard the rest of the material and load only whats in the file.

 

What do you want to do with only a displacement node ?

Sometimes I want displacement and other times I don't. I'm trying to create these quick files that will minimize the amount of time I spend in the material room.

it will remove the diffuse and specular.You cant save just a part of a whole material zone.

Quote - it will remove the diffuse and specular.You cant save just a part of a whole material zone.

That's so weird. I don't understand why they call Poser "Pro". It's clearly not pro and not designed in a way to maximize efficiency.

Weird? Really? If you can give me the name of another program that lets you save a single node from within a node network, I'll be sure to pass it on to the program staff. We'll have a look and see if we can do something similar down the road.

Quote - Weird? Really? If you can give me the name of another program that lets you save a single node from within a node network, I'll be sure to pass it on to the program staff. We'll have a look and see if we can do something similar down the road.

All you have to do is make it so a saved material can be appended instead of replacing the entire node setup.

Like someone said above, I could easily delete all the nodes and just save the displacement node as a material. Then later I can append it so it doesn't replace the material but just adds the displacement node that I saved.

Append or Replace? Let the user choose.

Maybe this is a feature in Shaderworks 2.5 so you guys don't even have to do this. Every software starts somewhere and evolves, so maybe this can be a feature some day. In all honesty it isn't critical.

Sorry for bitching and complaining I can't help it. LOL.

I want to add one more thing. Let's say I have 20 materials saved.  But they're all lacking ONE thing.  Do I go and re-fix all 20 of those materials? Or do I just apply another material that adds the extra feature/node I want?

A load-append mc5 (and reciprocal save-selected node(s) to mc5) option would be useful I think.

It would be a Pro feature though... no doubt about that.

Once you've loaded your appended node(s), you'd have to manually wire them up.

I can't think of a way you could reliably load a string of nodes into the middle of an existing node network, and automatically wire it up, in a way it would always make sense / work in any given shader.

It can be scripted on a per-case basis. Look at Zev0 and draagonstorm's "Vascularity for Poser" product as an example of this.

But, as a generic function... I don't think you could do that?

I don't think you could even construct a load-append options pop-up screen that would make the wiring-up any more intuitive than just going into the advanced mat room.

But... you could however have a generic function that just appended a string of nodes but didn't hook them up to the nodes already loaded... and that would be handy... and I can't imagine that, in itself, would be too difficult to add into the existing code?

For example... say I wanted to modulate a material zone between two shaders, using a black and white control map, plugged into a blender node...

...being able to load, say, a skin shader, and then append the nodes from a BBGlossy2 metallic shader ,and modulate between those two, to create some sort of cyborg effect.

Or, with what I'm doing currently, applying BBGlossy2 to the textures in Jack Tomlinson's Baroque Grandeur, I could more easily set up that modulation between the metallic gold paint look I'm trying to get with BBGlossy2, and a shader to emulate plasterwork (having created my black and white blender node control map by modifying one of the supplied specular / bump data maps).

The option to load-append from an mc5, into a selected material zone, would certainly be a big time saver in doing that sort of stuff...

Of course, as Poser is extensible with Python, it might be reasonable just to expect a "pro" (if the definition of that extends to being able to write some simple Python macros) to quickly write a bit of bespoke code, for their own specific use-case, I guess?

...and as Zanzo notes, there may well be an off-the-shelf plugin already available, from the likes of Semidieu's Shaderworks range?

You can (sort of) do it with Semidieu's Advanced Shaders, if you can get your head round it. I don't use it often enough to be fluent with it, but it certainly allows you to save parts of a shader setup - but in its own file format, not one of Poser's.

It's free, so well worth a look.

Quote - That's so weird. I don't understand why they call Poser "Pro". It's clearly not pro and not designed in a way to maximize efficiency.

Load the saved node, select and copy it to the clipboard, hit CRTL-Z,  paste it in and plug it in...

This is what I'll do presently too. Either that or I use the "Preview" or "Default" mat zone that a lot of objects have, but don't use, as a temporary location to load and copy a second mc5 node network to and from...

I miss a FULLLY working SHADER SPIDER for PoserPro 2012.

I just wish my Python-Fu was up to the challenge, I'd do more work on the freely available source code and be done with it....

(HINT! HINT! somebody!)

The Python souce code for Shader Spider is freely available under the Mozilla Open-Source license.  I just don't know enough about Python nor Shader Spider to attempt to update it either...

Quote - > Quote - That's so weird. I don't understand why they call Poser "Pro". It's clearly not pro and not designed in a way to maximize efficiency.

Load the saved node, select and copy it to the clipboard, hit CRTL-Z,  paste it in and plug it in...

This has always worked for me. A couple of mouse clicks. Easy solution with no extra coding needed. Sometimes simplicity is the best way.

pdg

I have done scripts that add a displacement map, add image maps and a blend node for tattoos, alter diffuse, transparency, etc etc settings in one or all, or a list of materials.  It isn't all that difficult , but coping with analysing the shader tree to see where it can best fit is harder. 

For a figure like v4 there are at least 3 maps (body, limbs,head) that cover all body parts , so plugging the same displacement map into all materials isn't whats needed.

It may be possible to write a script that can compare two materials and apply the different nodes and hook them up but honestly I just do it manually with seloect the nodes , copy paste and connect. I think scripts are only worthwhile if you are doing a lot of materials with the same changes.

I'm surprised that between Semidieu's Advanced Shaders or BB's VSS there isn't a way to do this. I like the suggestion by monkeycloud about using the preview material as a swatch, I usually have a few hidden primitives (sometimes with multiple material groups) that I use as mat palettes.

Would be awesome if some industrious individual were to resurrect the much missed Poser 6 Shader Spider.

where is the shader spider source ?

what doesnt work in Poser after 7.0 ?

Here, apparently...

http://code.google.com/p/pw-shaderspider-2-source/

Yeah, Poser broke the single node thing after Poser 5, it worked before then to just change a bump map or a diffuse, etc., but they changed something.

I'd really like to see this implemented. As a merchant giving the purchaser the ability to have have multiple options for bump, displacement, reflection maps and color would be a HUGE benefit.

  We used to be able to do this with the old mat pose system and it was a real benefit.

Hats off to anyone who figures this out.

cheerio

lululee

You can do that by having a pose file call a script. Once the baic script is written its trivial to modify.

Quote - You can do that by having a pose file call a script. Once the baic script is written its trivial to modify.

Ultimately you're right. I have a collection of scripts now thanks to the ones you provided :) But I'd still like to improve my efficiency while working.

We should always always push the poser devs harder & harder until they achieve perfection.

I am working on something but its fairly complicated which I dont normally do ;)

My last comment was really for Lululee. I did a script to alter a makeup set so the user could select a number of settings for eyeshadow, blush and lipstick. It avoided a ton of preset mat pose files.

This is the Python source-I grabbed it with Subversion and stripped all of the svn data out. Remove the txt extension to get the zip. It is in a normal Runtime structure.

The open-source license is here...

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/