DirectX Shaders

[poopipe]

have you turned on shadows in the viewports ?

you need to right click > enable shadows on the lights you want to cast shadows

omnis with mapped shadows work fine.

[gaboon]

Yeah, tried it with all different types of shadows also. With spot and Omni.Don't know.

[Buzzy]

do you have the "enable shadows" checkbox turned on under the lights' modifier tab?
And do you have the shader's "shadowCasters" set to those lights?
And lastly, sometimes max will use the default lights for shadows. So, make sure your scene is being lit with the scene lights instead of default lights (i think the hot key is L or ctrl-L or alt-L....something with L)

[gaboon]

Yes, yes, and yes. I don't know. Anything else I could try?

[Buzzy]

try this - select all of your lights, right click in the viewport, and find "Enable Viewport Shadows Selected"

[Chung Wong]

Hey, how are things? I've been playstationing it for a few weeks now and just left the work alone. Best catch up with it now Anyways, I have a question for you, I've been making this gun model and want explore the best ways of making it. I know I want to stick it in this shader, but I've come across a small hitch. I've been told that it's best to bake out world normal maps instead of tangible ones for inorganic models... I think thats the correct term, I'll double check that, but I'm sure you know what I'm on about, the thing is, it seems that your shader doesn't like them much, anyway around that?

[Buzzy]

"tangent" normals are what you are referring to. Yeah, it would be possible to alter the code a tad to make the shader use world-space normals instead. I'll look into it.

In the meantime, I have a toon shader that is near completion that I will upload a little later.

[gaboon]

That was it dude! Thanks !

[poopipe]

world space normals are only any good if the object doesn't move.

afaik there's no benefit to using them over tangent space normals - I can't see why there would be

[Buzzy]

Well, you wouldn't actually use world space normals....you'd use object space normals. Practically the same thing, but object space would allow the object to move. Because they aren't tangents, they won't work if the model is deformed with a skin modifier or something, but that doesn't matter since, in theory, this would only be used for single hard models.

Otherwise, I can see the benefit. Tangent space normals are relative vectors, where object or world space normals are absolute vectors. That means that the smoothing of the model doesn't matter at all, so you can avoid the inevitable "weirdness" that you get around hard edges.

[Chung Wong]

Originally Posted by Buzzy

"tangent" normals are what you are referring to. Yeah, it would be possible to alter the code a tad to make the shader use world-space normals instead. I'll look into it.

In the meantime, I have a toon shader that is near completion that I will upload a little later.

Originally Posted by Buzzy

Otherwise, I can see the benefit. Tangent space normals are relative vectors, where object or world space normals are absolute vectors. That means that the smoothing of the model doesn't matter at all, so you can avoid the inevitable "weirdness" that you get around hard edges.

Awesome, I think that was what I was thinking of (object space normals) as you are spot on with the description above. If we can get the enabled, this shader is becoming increasingly more versatile.

Looking forwards to the toon shader too.

[poopipe]

Originally Posted by Buzzy

Otherwise, I can see the benefit. Tangent space normals are relative vectors, where object or world space normals are absolute vectors. That means that the smoothing of the model doesn't matter at all, so you can avoid the inevitable "weirdness" that you get around hard edges.

ah, that makes sense.

I are corrected

[Chung Wong]

Hey, how you doing? Anyways, still enjoying your shader and seeing what I can get out of it. This is the latest piece of work I got out of it.

http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/h...t=Beauty-2.jpg

Any word on the toon shader? Looking forwards to it Will be looking to use this shader for the dom wars. Will make sure you get credited for it

[Buzzy]

Really really nice gun Chung. Great work!
I actually have the toon shader ready to go, I just kind of forgot to post it. So I will do that tonight.

BTW, are you entering the low-poly comp or are you saving yourself for DW4?

[Chung Wong]

Thanks dude

Oh, yeah, I'm getting ref images now to get the ideas flowing. Should be entering both the low poly challenges. Need to work on speed. I always seem to start well, but find it difficult to finish off models. I keep on working on them and never know when to stop. I know I've said this before but these shaders that you keep devolping are a Godsend! I really hope to do it justice in the dom wars

Also, I'd like to ask you, as your shader doesn't render both sides, how do I go about doing hair and stuff like that? It's been bothering me a little.