All; I have three projects currently on hold because I can't seem to get a plank shader to work. I would prefer to use a procedural shader rather than a texture map.  A screen shot of one that works,  or a link to a tutorial(other than the info in the Carrara manual.. not real helpful), heck a link to a shader I can take apart would be great.  If there is an easier way ( I have all the DCG and Inagoni plugins) Please enlighten me. When I try to create the shader, the planking runs the wrong direction, or it turns black.. GRRRR. Any help that could be provided would be appreciated.

I am not a good english reader...what is a plank shader??

I wish I could get my wood shaders to come out that good. :)

Quote - what is a plank shader??

I assume it's a wood shader for a plank.

To get the grain to go in a different direction, the usual thing to do in a procedural shader would be to apply a transformation (rotate and scale) to the UVW coords that drive the pattern (and possibly the noise source).

The wood shaders that come with Carrara have a "Direction" property which sets the major axis of the pattern.

a wood shader to put the rings/texture along the wood to make it look like wood?  I am doing the fruit tutorial over at Carrara Lounge and one of the steps is a procedural shader to make the plate look like wood with texture.  Not sure if this will help

http://carraralounge.com/index.php?topic=194.msg448  the current thread and links to the video

the original thread http://carraralounge.com/index.php?topic=177.msg420#msg420

And the Help file is very--well --helpful!

Brian

Quote - Both the Lumber Yard and Planks are items in the Carrara shader tree.

And the Help file is very--well --helpful!

Brian

I do agree - HF

Click on the image to see the settings I used here.

Mark

   Thank you all for the input, Especially Mark, despite the fact that I wasn't  that coherent with the original request.  A deck is exactly what I need. I seem to have problems with the easier things and and can figure out the tough ones.
  BTW, Mark, the VTC tutorials are great, they really helped me figure out a couple of things that were bugging me..  I found them by accident when I was studying for one of my techy tests, that led me to dark arts,  and the road down the mountain side that leads to the pier,  that I need a deck on. So I guess this is your fault anyway  :lol:
  Thank you all again,  It's great to be back in 3D

 Thanks for the kind words. Glad the tuts helped out. :D