I try my hands on a really very good Stone, rock shader in Matmatic. But at last my results was not really the burner.
Is there any way to make Stone , rock shader really outstanding?
I work on Ancient Buildings like Maya, Sumerian temple and Pyramids. So I use texture, Displ and Normal Map.
But I would like to give the buildings really a great shader and not like my usual 3 nodes crap.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in Advance.

I post this request over the Nodecult too :) Just in case.

I quite often just run stone textures through EZSkin2, with the SSS option in the second tab changed to marble... and any stone textures in the figure / prop set to "Skin".

Depends if you're using Poser 9 / 2012 or above though... as it needs that SSS node.

It's a fairly lazy and inappropriate method probably... but looks okay to me usually, when I use it ;-)

I used this technique on the statue in my latest gallery post...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2485786

...of course that statue model came with a beautifully painted texture to begin with... so the SSS is just giving it a little more zing, I think.

thanks monkeycloud. I will try. Sounds interesting:) I use Skinshader till now only on hair and skin. But yes, why it should not work on stones?

I use PP2014 .

keep in mind that things like limestone and sandstone really wouldn't have SSS on them but granite may ;).

Are you doing finished stone or rough?

Laurie

The rock shader in this pic is configurable:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2138317&user_id=643665&np&np

The lichen and moss can be switched on/off as needed, as can the wetness towards the bottom of the rocks.

Quote - I can help but we need to narrow the focus. I have a few interesting rock shaders I have never talked about, and I can show and explain some building blocks of these kinds of shaders.

Well, I'm certainly interested, sir.

As am I! I have to rebuild all my BB shaders collection after my laptop died.

Interest piqued. Ready to learn!

watching @.@

Laurie

Me too!

I'm watching and hoping to learn.

With BB as teacher, it's guaranteed! 

And please don't say you haven't any time.  That would be the ultimate tease.

I'm working on some presentations now. However, I'm experiencing bugs in PP2014 which I really haven't used very much. It crashes on me when I run matmatic, unlike PP2012.  I think I have now found how to avoid the crash, so I'm making progress.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=58326

We're going to make it look something like this image.

Ready and waiting.

Here's a visual.

Now I have to think about how to explain how it works.

That is...wow. I am definitely ready to learn! I may even break my mental block and actually sit down and figure out how to work Matmatic after this. 

This zip file contains a folder. This is not a runtime - it's just a folder. You should open the zip file and make the folder inside (BBStoneTutorial) go into one of your Poser Runtime/libraries/Materials containing folders.

In that folder, there is the matmatic script BBStone01.mm1.txt. If you are interested in matmatic techniques, read that.

Note: I need to push a new version of matmatic up to my server. I am using some new features in this script, so it is not likely to work for you at this time.

Also in that folder are the five materials that the script creates. These were set up to work on the freebie prop above, with the scales set right for the wall01 material zone.

More to come...

Awesome!  Thanks BB.

Look at my picture. See the red arrow - change PM:Tile Aspect Ratio to 1 like I did here.

Now look at your wall. (If you don't have advanced preview you may have to render to see this.)

Observe two things:

1. Look on the top half. The tiles are not square. This means the U scale and V scale in the UV mapping on the wall are not equal.

2. Look on the bottom half which is a gradient in U. Notice that it repeats black to white, then black to white, then black to white. The wall is not one piece - it's actually three different cards. There is even a little bit of gap between them.

The tile node doesn't work perfectly with uneven scales like this. And since the three-cards are not perfectly UV mapped 0 to 1 and not quite touching either, the tiles we make will appear to be a little messed up at the joints.

You need to be aware of this aspect ratio that is burned into the UV map of your object.

Before you start wondering why you can't make things make sense, use this UV material to check it out.

I didn't exactly measure what is the perfect square ratio here. It's probably 1.3 or something. Just be aware that's all.

If you want wider tiles, increase the Tile Aspect Ratio. If you want narrower tiles, decrease it.

This is the cellular node at work, but this happens with others, too.

Do you see the obvious repetitions? Those are bad. When we work to make procedural versions of natural patterns, we should not see repetitions at all. When we get them, we have to do extra work to eliminate them. Be aware.

I tracked it down to this: Small scales and highly negative numbers - something goes bonkers. In this case, it's the negative X coordinates of all parts of the prop on the left side.

My workaround is to not let nodes like this use their own coordinate system. Instead, I extract the world coordinates using the P node, and I add a ton to them, like 5000 inches. This puts most props entirely into postive world coordinates, where the nodes generally behave themselves.

Such repairs and workarounds are only applicable on certain nodes. If you run into one, ask.

Load the material BBstone01 DISP. This is a version of the shader that only does the displacement work. The color is simple white diffuse - no fancy tricks.

I did this so you can understand:

1. How important shape and texture is

2. Work with the shape and texture parameters to get a feel for them in isolation.

I'm using the word "texture" here to mean what you feel when you run your fingers over an object. I don't mean CG texture like we usually mean. I mean the word the way ordinary humans mean it - the fine bumps, ridges, wrinkles, pits, valleys, etc. that you can feel and know them without looking.

Observe the clean tile shape!

After we learn all about this shader, I'll show you how to build a proper tile behavior from scratch, using only math nodes and the U and V nodes. Then we won't have this problem.

What's happening here with bias?

• 0 stays 0
• 1 stays 1
• .5 gets moved to equal the bias value you select
• all other values shift up or down to make a curve which starts at 0, ends at 1, and in the middle it equals the bias you select

Gain (softness) can alter the steepness of the transition at the edge from 0 to 1.

We use it here (along with bias) to make puffy tiles and other shapes. Cool eh?

Play around - stay inside 0 to 1.

So - load the BBstone01 brick and manipulate the Tile shapes as I've just shown you.

Can you make puffy bricks like this?

Ask questions. Note: I am out this evening.

Fantastic! I copied everything! There SO needs to be a community archive of your public shaders. I had computer crash and lost all your published PP2012 shaders. I might be able to have data recovery from the old drive, but I wish there was a place I could go to grab all the shaders I that are missing. Luckily the computer sees my old external so I have your shaders as of Poser Pro 2010, but not the newer ones so I'm crawling through forums looking for them. Thank you so much for posting this!

Just a curosity, was BBGlossy2 released to the public, or are we still on tinterhooks for that?

Soory for be so late. I get no ebot for this thread.

Here I have a rough render. It has only the Texture on it, no Bump, no displ.

Just to show you what I mean.

Quote - I'll take a break now. I know you can't wait to play.

So - load the BBstone01 brick and manipulate the Tile shapes as I've just shown you.

Can you make puffy bricks like this?

Ask questions. Note: I am out this evening.

This looks amazing. Far away from what I created.

Quote - The same shader is capable of doing plain rock as well.

This one....great, just what i had in mind.

Quote - Fantastic! I copied everything! There SO needs to be a community archive of your public shaders. I had computer crash and lost all your published PP2012 shaders. I might be able to have data recovery from the old drive, but I wish there was a place I could go to grab all the shaders I that are missing. Luckily the computer sees my old external so I have your shaders as of Poser Pro 2010, but not the newer ones so I'm crawling through forums looking for them. Thank you so much for posting this!

I have saved all the pics from BB shadernodes and have them in a folder.

This folder i watch with argus eyes that it don't get lost.

Quote - keep in mind that things like limestone and sandstone really wouldn't have SSS on them but granite may ;).

Are you doing finished stone or rough?

Laurie

Laurie, the mayan Temple will be woth carved ornaments like the real one.

What I need is a realistic looking made with shader. With textures ; Normal map etc.

I can have nice results, but i have the feeling that there is something missing. A fine final touch.

Just to show what I mean and for what i need the shaders. :)

Thanks BB. I'm experimenting now.

Quote - Fantastic! I copied everything! There SO needs to be a community archive of your public shaders. I had computer crash and lost all your published PP2012 shaders. I might be able to have data recovery from the old drive, but I wish there was a place I could go to grab all the shaders I that are missing. Luckily the computer sees my old external so I have your shaders as of Poser Pro 2010, but not the newer ones so I'm crawling through forums looking for them. Thank you so much for posting this!

You're welcome. I probably can find my shaders again if you tell me which you're missing. I don't have them all assembled, but I remember something about many of them and I either still have them or I know what to search for.

Quote - Just a curosity, was BBGlossy2 released to the public, or are we still on tinterhooks for that?

No but I'm trying to get that set out.

Quote - Here a close up. Please ignore the not matching textures. I am still puzzling

Just to show what I mean and for what i need the shaders. :)

Hmmm - these sculpted objects in gritty stone really don't need a "shader" - i.e. the finish is matte - just diffuse. There is little or no importance to scattering. There is no shine.

What you really need is a correct displacement map to go with the sculpted shapes. As I started to show, this is mostly about texture and shape.

I can help with faking displacements for certain situations, and if you have even a simple bump map, I can do a lot with that.

@Bagginsbill: Is it still your intention to upload the latest version of Matmatic?