OK,  been trying to do this shader for some time (literally years, since way back with ray dream)  and just  never figured it out and always seem to run out of time to play, but gosh darn it I'm determined now!!

OK, this can be a bit long so bear with me here.. Back in the day of my drag racing cars, we used to do cool paint effects on the hoods and such buy using multi layers of paint.. start with a black and white layer with what ever pattern (usually some kinda flame or something) then layer up transparent and semi transparent color over them making this cool kinda halo-y depth effect ..

Now I'm trying to do it in carrara and it sohould be easy as the whole shader system kinda works that way right... well no  :( at least not for me. :cursing:

 

anyway, I've tried reading, watching tube's videos  even took Mmoir's violian shader and tried backward enginerring it as he sorta does it with the wood finish and adding layers of "varnish" to get a more real wood look, and still haven't gotten it.. 

So, I take the default shader... click the top menu scroll down to "complex shader" and select "layer list". Now I need to apply this test "texture map" to the color channel right? for the black and white under coat, so I load the texture map (and play an bunch to get it lined up some who correctly)

but now I want to add and over layer of semi transparent color(say hot rod red for fun) 

So I close up the other layer to keep from confusion ad hit the little plus icon

but now what.. If I make this layer a multi channel, add the red color the add transperentcy to it it makes the whole object trans, not just that layer... try a bunch of other mix things and just can't get it to do what I want.. OK need help

 

(PS using Carrara 7 pro, but I don't think there are any changes in 8 to the shaders are there?)

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Hexagon, Carrara, Sculptris, and recently Sketchup.