Free Maya/max cgfx/fx Shader

[bricevdm]

Hi there :)
some of you may have seen this thread on polycount already. New version is also time for a broader sharing ^^
I recently got into learning Cg and I figured out most free shaders out there are max ones. So I thought it might be a good idea to release what I've been doing these last few months so that people can play with it
I tried to build the more generic shader I could, kinda 'multi-purpose'. It's mostly for testing or beauty renders, but it might be useful to someone. It's rather slow and unoptimized and only supports one lamp. I have been mostly experimenting the cg thing, not yet into efficiency :)

the more recent changes on the maya shader are stored on this page (http://www.mentalwarp.com/~brice/shader.php)

Christoph Kubisch did a max port: check out his page for the latest version (http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmaxFX)

Before I hear you ppl scream, beware you have to fill all the maps, as usual with most realtime shaders :)

I had some great testing models thanks to Peppi and Pior :)
http://www.mentalwarp.com/~brice/download/Fzero_PiorAndPeppi.jpg
These are using the very first versions of the shaders without any tweak, so other features such as color spec, emmissive color, hemispheric ambient, rim etc are now available

I wrote a little tutorial. Any input on optimization, typos, better interface or behavior, dating, etc is welcomed.
http://www.mentalwarp.com/~brice/shader/ShaderGenericTuto1_1mini.jpg (http://www.mentalwarp.com/~brice/shader/ShaderGenericTuto1_1.jpg)

enjoy :) feel free to give feedback, post your testing models etc :thumb:

[Deto]

Sweeet. Thanks :D That sounds very good, got to test it out when I got time ^^ Thank you!

[Jonny3D]

thanks for the shader, been looking for one since I don't know how to write one, but everytime I try to load it up, it gives me an error, and it crashes! I'm Using Maya Unlimited 8.5.. Any Ideas?

[bricevdm]

Probably for the same reason (http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?p=14320#post14320) you can't run Vailias shader:
ATI card or any other nvidia without pixel shader 3 support if you're using the full technique, or a card that can't support enought instructions in one shader.
have a look at this thread (http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=238237&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1) and you'll mayhbe find the answer :)

[Frozan]

ahh thank you for posting this. with this shown do u know of anything about bloom in viewport or being supported somewhere in the cgfx shaders?

[bricevdm]

you can't do a real bloom effect in maya, as you can't acces any kind of render to texture. You can in max, but it's limited to a single object.
You can fake it with a blur in Uv space, Vailias shader is using this technique. It's pretty limitted tough, the bloom doesn't show up outside the shape of the object.