I was looking around at Daz and I saw this beautiful shader for leaves and other objects.  Seems quite handy to me and the results are beautiful - verigated leaves.  They say by playing with the opacity you can make stuff like hard candy as well with it.  Are there any scripts or materials out there that would do this?

http://www.daz3d.com/countdown-2-summer/nature-s-variance-shaders-and-props-for-daz-studio

Delaney

Easy enough to do but I don't have a tree to test or demonstrate with.

Do you have one in mind?

I have quite a few trees. Some of the 'Old Wood' ones from Traveler over at RDNA, like the Sugar maple or his Birch.  I also have Lisa's Botanicals Oak Trees and Pear Tree from when they were Plat Club items.  

The traveler ones are pretty inexpensive.  I can't find the 'Old Wood' ones at RDNA now, so strange, but here's a Real Deal Tree...

http://www.runtimedna.com/Traveler-s-Naturals-Real-Deal-Trees-Vol-2.html

It has some varigation done with different maps, but I thought the ability to control the colors in this shader is a real plus.

Here's a link to the documentation of the Daz shader which shows more of the functionality.

http://3dimensiondigital.com/locker/NatureShader/NS-Documentation.pdf

What about Thomas Luft's Ivy Generator? It's free and just needs triangulated meshes for ivy to grow on. Original version for Win/Mac/Linux plus textures here -

http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/

... and an updated multi-core Win only version here -

http://vivec3d.com/3d-ivy-generator-2012/

Yea, so I stupidly took a beta from SM and it crashes immediately. I have to re-install. But meanwhile, people are coming over.

I'll just point out some tips for now.

Once you learn a few basic ways of replacing colors with other colors and a couple patterns, this stuff is pretty easy. The grief is that testing with 10,000 leaves is slow. If you can find a prop with just a few hundred, I'd give that a go.

First tip - take your leaf color map and run it into an HSV node. Set saturation to 0. Adjust the HSV "Value" parameter to get the brightest result to white or close to white - this may need to be above 1. This is now a useful black-and-white pattern which can then be easily colorized. (There are more tricks we can play with HSV but we'll "leave" that to later. Get it? "Leave" it - aaaa hahahahahahah)

Try this now - take your HSV B&W output into wherever the color map used to go (probably Diffuse_Color but if you know shaders, you're probably using Scatter here.)

Set the color chip where you plugged it in to any color you want. Now you can get a red or yellow leaf from a green color map.

OK so keeping that idea in mind we need a pattern.

These modulated patterns are easily produced using Poser's 3D noise nodes. The two most easily used in this case are probably Spots and Clouds.

Try a spots node. It has two color chips - use your B&W HSV for both. Set one to yellow, the other to red. You'll probably want to increase the scale on the spots so they make big areas of color on your leaves. Increase the softness to get smoother transition between your colors and adjust the threshold to alter the ratio of the two colors.

After you get the hang of that, try the same with the Clouds node. Try big scale, little scale. Use the bias value to favor one color versus the other. Use the gain value to alter the contrast between one color and the other.

Removing leaves is similar - you use a spots node (black and white) with no softness so you get a sharp edge between visible and invisible leaves. Plug that into transparency and set that to 1. Set transparency_edge to 0. If you have specular turned on somewhere, plug the spots into that as well to modulate the reflectivity of the specular. You need specularity to be 0 (black) exactly where you also are invisibile (black).

Of course there is still the question of how to make a good leaf shader, but that's separate from the mechanism of modulating color and transparency.

Those look really good!  I played with this all day, I have the same props and tried the same settings but mine looks very bumpy and the colors are not nearly as clean looking. 

I think I was using BB's EnvSphere w/ a blue sky/forest map I had downloaded from one of the links on his site. I also use Gamma Correction and IDL (setting the gamma in/out on the envsphere to 1/1 per his notes).

Not sure how much of a difference it makes, but my Texture Filtering on the color map is 'none' (I never leave it on the 'quality' default). I also uncheck that Reflection box on the Poser Surface node.

/edit

Here's the link to the Envsphere.

https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/environment-sphere

And a link to one of the maps I use. I use render gamma for it when I load it into the envsphere.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroscreamerovsky/6839820804

Thank you so much! :)

     I have some trees with mesh-formed leaves, and some vines with transmapped leaves.

seach R'osity freestuff

.     I also have the leafy recliner chair and such on ShareCG.

That link takes me to my own freestuff, but I found yours here http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=423798

/edit-- OT but zomg a Xanadu building in there. <3 that  movie.

I have assembled a leaf shader that demonstrates a bunch of ideas, all controlled by one dial.

Here are six copies of the tree. (Click for full size!)

The dial is adjusting from 0 to 1, left to right.

The dial controls:

0   ...    1

Shiny ... Matte

Smooth ... Wrinkly

Green ... Brown

Single Color ... Multiple Color

Full ... Missing (transparent)

As time permits, over the next few days, I'll explain how to do all these effects with one parameter to control them all.

Wow.. looking forward to seeing the fun stuff on this one!

Sits down to watch Bagginsbill magic!

Thank you!

Those look really good!  I can't wait to see how you are doing it.  

Are the leaves transmapped?

In my first post, I mentioned that the HSV node can do some tricks and we'd "leave" that for later. Later is now.

I know some people glaze over when I give a wall of text. On the other hand, if I write as little as possible, some important lessons may be missed. So I'm going to try a balancing act. If I go too fast over something, please ask.

First topic is HSV - perhaps boring to many here. But it's important - what is Hue, Saturation, and Value? Less well known - how are these represented as numbers, and how do we do math with these? Even less well known - so what good is that - why do we care?

Hue is a property of a color that characterizes its position relative to the primary colors. Primaries are R(ed), G(reen) and B(lue). All the colors we see in computer images are made of combinations of RGB. Whenever there is a difference among R, G, and B, then the color has a hue. (If R, G, and B are the same, then the color has no hue and is a shade of gray. Everything that is not a shade of gray has a hue.)

In the attached render, I made a color wheel. Each spoke of that wheel is a different hue, and has examples of colors that all have that same hue. So going from center to outside along a spoke, we're visiting different colors but the hue is not changing. What is changing here from inside to outside is Value. Going around the circle, we're visiting different colors but the Value is not changing. What is changing going around the circle is Hue.

Value is a property of a color that characterizes its brightness. Numerically, a color's value ranges from 0 to 1. This is by definition, not by nature. The definition of 1 here means the brightest your monitor can make. There are obviously brighter colors than your monitor can make in nature - those have a value above 1. We cannot see such colors on a computer monitor. It "clips" at 1.

I have demonstrated, across the bottom, some colors that have no Hue, but clearly have a range of Values. All colors have a measurable, exact Value.

What number system goes with Hue? Different programs handle it differently. Some programs label a hue with the corresponding degrees around the circle where it appears in a color wheel. But Poser uses degrees divided by 60. (This is a historical artifact from a common way of calculating what a color's hue is that happens to assign value from 0 to 6.) We don't really care what number system is in use for Hue, as long as we understand how they work.

Why do shades of gray not have a Hue number? Because they all pile into the very center of the color wheel. They can never appear along one of the spokes, so they don't have a spoke position - therefore they have no Hue. Or, you could say they are located in every spoke, because all the spokes touch the center. Either way, you cannot name the Hue for a shade of gray.

In the 0-6 system used by Poser the Hues are anchored as shown in the render.

Red is 0 (or 6), Yellow is 1, Green is 2, and so on for Cyan, Blue, and Magenta.

For understanding leaf color manipulations, we're mostly going to care about 0, 1, and 2 (red, yellow, and green). By the strangest of coincidences, leaves change color by shifting hue from 2 towards 0!!!

Note! Hues are not confined to the integers. Colors such as orange or brown are in between red and yellow, and they have fractional hues such as .5, .737, etc. Colors between green and cyan have fractional hues between 2 and 3, such as 2.33, 2.67, etc.

When we manipulate hues, we are going to encounter and use those fractional values.

In this scene he has placed numerous examples of "billboard" trees and shrubs. These are essentially "paper cutouts" of pictures of plants. A single polygon holds an image that is used as diffuse color, and another image that is used as a transparency map (also called transmap for those in a hurry). The map should actually be called an opacity map, but let's not quibble.

In this version, the plants are shown pretty much as they existed for the photographer.

It's simple - the Color Map (an Image_Map node that I renamed to Color Map) goes into Diffuse_Color. I set Diffuse_Value to .8 - a long explanation goes with that, but here's the short version - just do it.

The Transparency Map goes into Transparency. Transparency_Falloff should be 0, and that makes Transparency_Edge irrelevant. (Another long lesson - just do it.)

In its default condition, it makes no change to the output.

Now I have to tell you that this business of multiplying a hue with a number is generally not that useful. It's hard to come up with anything other than changing leaves into fall colors as a reason for doing this.

But - what a beautiful and simple effect! It is exactly what you want for changing leaf colors! This is an unbelievable coincidence that a simple multiplication of hue so entirely mimics something from nature!!!

The green spoke (Hue = 2) gets multiplied with .25 resulting in a Hue of .5. The Hue at .5 (look on the original color wheel) is orange.

The yellow poke (Hue = 1) gets multiplied with .25 resulting in a Hue of .25. The Hue at .25 is brown.

So - greens become yellow-orange, and yellows become brown. Wow.

Higher Hues such as blue and magenta reduce to lower hues, resulting in green and yellow. But mostly we don't care because leaves are not blue or magenta.

As for the trunk of the tree - most bark is either brown or a shade of gray.

Notice along the bottom that the shades of gray are unmodified by this operation!!! That is because they have no Hue. The Hue is "nothing". "Nothing" times .25 is still "nothing". Hah! I love math.

Notice also that browns (low hue close to 0) become more brown (low hue closer to 0).

This is another amazing coincidence. When we do this hue multiplication, the bark of the tree is relatively unaffected!!!

Awesome.

I changed summer to fall with one node!

If you have a sharp eye, you may notice something odd here.

The second plant (under the T in the sign that says Market) has some green spots showing. Why?

Go back and look at the original plant. It has some magenta-red flowers or berries (hard to tell). The hue shift from magenta-red (5.5) with a Hue multipler of .3 that I used on that plant results in a hue around 1.6 - a green hue. Since they were also bright (high Value) we now have some bright green spots.

I could show you some more manipulations that would isolate those hues and shove them into the browns, but that isn't going to come up that often to make it worth explaining at this stage.

Unlike the billboard, every single leaf on this tree is identical to every other.

The sameness is somewhat tolerable on the summer leaves, but they don't look right being identical in the fall.  Some variation would be good.

But first - notice that my hue multiplier (.25) did change the hue but it is not a convincing result.

Do not blindly follow my numbers! Every situation will require your finesse. You must understand the process, know how the numbers work, and be ready to make adjustments.

Notice that I increased Saturation (multiplier is 1.6) and decreased the Value (multiplier is .4)

Do you have sharp eyes? Did you notice the specular reflections on these dry, near-dead leaves? That is not acceptable! Yet it is required on the fresh, moist, summer leaves.

Indeed, we will have to do something about that.

And these leaves are too flat.

And these leaves are too numerous. Etc. More lessons to come.

This looks fantastic Ted!

Had to drag me back into the Poser forum did you? :-)

I can't wait to get home and play with this, and I'm looking forward to the next lesson. Thank you!

Pardon to the Mama's and the Papa's

An Ode to BB

"All the leaves are brown and my skydome isn't gray.
Thanks for the walk thru the HSV node today."

:biggrin:

Thank you! Formatted everything into a nice little word document for easier reading. Time to throw it on the nook!

As long as the wall of text comes from Bagginsbill - I am happy.

Actually, I prefer walls of text with pictures to video tutorials.

THANK YOU!

Even before we deal with summer-to-fall shader techniques, I wanted to revisit the basic leaf rendering itself.  I tried a number of things to improve the results that I want to share with you.

Before I do, though, I have to attend to some day work. So in the meantime, I give you two images to ponder.

First, the "before" image - this is just straight up using the color map and the transparency map that came with the tree.

Click for full size.

Again, click for full size. Compare carefully to the "before" image.

Can you identify what I did? (Not how, just what did I do)

I'd also like to point out - this is a 3 minute render. It does not use IDL. It does not use scatter. It does not use reflection. It does not even use a Blinn node. It is just using the Diffuse and Specular nodes built into the Poser Surface root node. Lighting is a procedural IBL and an infinite light.

Poser 6 is capable of making this image.

If you're not able to make a plant look like this, you're doing it wrong.

I will be posting shader and render settings. Back soon.

I found the tree here, in case you want to try it yourself.

http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/tree-67970.html

I never know if these sites are legit freebies or copyright violations. If somebody knows this item is stolen, I would ask the mods to remove the link. I hope it's legit.

Good tree!  I'm not sure how you are lowering the specular as I've tried lowering the specular value and the highlight size and I'm not having any luck getting rid of all the shine on the leaves.

I can change the color of the leaves, though, with the HSV.

I'm eagerly awating the next lesson.  Thank you!

Bagginsbill Here's a silly question: Can you suggest a simple IBL procedural setup? My tests are looking nothing like yours. I tend to only render with an infinite light, IDL and your dome. Thanks for taking the time to educate us!

I can't even get the leaves not to show a white border ... sigh

I did invert the opacity map ...

edited to add: ok, Transparency at 5 gets rid of the white lines

Yes, a lighting set up would be helpful as my leaves are rendering much darker than the ones you've shown.  

Glad there's a way to remove the white ring on the leaves, that was driving me crazy.

How do you invert the transparency? I used cosine and it seemed to invert it but is there a better way? Also the transparency doesnt seem to get rid of the edge for me. I'll have to check in after this weekend ~ good luck :)

Same tree, but I'm using a leaf I found here:

http://www.saltthesandbox.org/trees/lobed.htm

It's the silver maple. 

Must sleep now - more tomorrow.

Here's the light setup I'm using. You can turn off IDL with this and still get renders like I'm showing you - all were done without IDL. The dome is there in my scene but I'm not using it for light in these renders.

The IBL here is procedural - no image. It is very adjustable - will explain later.

The attached file is a Poser light set - its extension should be .lt2 but I had to add .txt on it to make it attachable to the forum. (Stupid forum - how many forum udpates will we endure and STILL not be able to attach a simple Poser file even though the damn thing IS JUST TEXT.)

So - if you download that file, REMOVE the .txt at the end of its name. If you can't see the .txt, then you need to take off your training wheels and tell Windows to show file extensions for known file types because you are a sophisticated adult and you can handle the truth.

Quote - How do you invert the transparency? I used cosine and it seemed to invert it but is there a better way? Also the transparency doesnt seem to get rid of the edge for me. I'll have to check in after this weekend ~ good luck :)

The transparency didn't get rid of the edge for me either. I built a node network to solve the problem. Now I can drop in any leaf on a white background and that's it. I don't even use a transparency map at all. I used nodes to detect the white part and mask it out. Will show tomorrow.

But as to the direct question, how to invert a transmap, it is 1 - x.

Math node set to subtract.

Value_1 = 1

Value_2 = 1 and plug in your map

The result will be an inverted copy (a negative).

You can do the same for color negatives, too. Use Color_Math instead of Math and white in the colors.

Quote - Good tree!  I'm not sure how you are lowering the specular as I've tried lowering the specular value and the highlight size and I'm not having any luck getting rid of all the shine on the leaves.

I can change the color of the leaves, though, with the HSV.

I'm eagerly awating the next lesson.  Thank you!

A dry leaf has no specular. Lower the specular value all the way to 0.

I get a 400 by 600 render in under a minute. (It takes longer as you make more of the leaves transparent. As the tree goes into winter, it takes longer to render.)

For a very fast check of the color, turn off raytracing. I get a render in 10 seconds or less.

I have used Poser Pro 2014's ability to rename nodes to mark what they're doing. I mostly kept the node type so you'd know what it is, but the comment is in parentheses.

In the upper right is the Image_Map (called Color Map). You can put anything with a green or orange or yellow leaf on a white background and this is going to work.

The comp node extracts the blue channel from the color map. I'm taking advantage of the subject matter here - leaves have very little blue in them. So anything with a lot of blue is not the leaf.

The Math (offset) is offseting the small amount of blue (usually less than .2) found in the leaf itself.

The Clamp (detect white) node is doing several things. 1) It throws away the offset negative data - that becomes 0. 2) It is amplifying the fringe area where white transitions to green. 3) It is restoring the white level that was offset in the previous step to full white.

Next to it, the Math (opacity) node is inverting the white detector to make my transparency map. (As I said before, Poser is actually expecting an opacity map in its "transparency" input, so that's what I called it.)

The Blender (remove white) node is removing the white and replacing it with green so that any fringing that still happens is fringed with green, not white.

You, sir, are brilliant!

Everybody knows it, but it should be said from time to time.

(As for the double negative - I am Bavarian, we understand these things. LOL)

Thank you!! I am away from my computer for another week and look forward to applying what you have demonstrated

I have more to show - but I'm overwhelmed with work. Hopefully will post soon.