PDA

View Full Version : shader map pro



eelamb
04-08-2012, 12:40 PM
Fo those wishing to learn some pattern making, there is a great little program that will only take a few hours to learn. The real learning curve is learning how to work withe the images. By shading them the way you want to get the heights necessary to creat a good pattern.

Shader map pro http://shadermap.com/

This program is called shader map pro, and only cost $19.95, but has a free version (CL). Shader map pro for vista and win 7 must be installed as administrator or it will error out on starting.

The following post will deal with a quick learning and set up of shader map pro, where I will show you some images of the process I use. BJB uses shader map pro, and has gotten quite good with it. I actually use MoI3d and ZBrush, but still revert to shader map pro for the easy clip art type patterns. The patten I will show you took about 15 minutes from start to finish. You will also need an image editing program such as paint.net or gimp2.

Ok here goes, the frist two are dealing with the images. Load the image, and fill in the areas with shades of gray. Where lighter gray is higher, and darker grays are lower. And change the background to BLACK. Last image is the image I used, save it and play with it to understand the process.

eelamb
04-08-2012, 12:43 PM
Part 2 shader map pro
just follow the images to see my process.

Be sure to set up shader map pro as I show in the images for file type and destination directory.

eelamb
04-08-2012, 12:47 PM
Part 3 Designer

Most will know this part, but I will cover it too.
Import the image you saved with suffix of _disp into designer.
invert the image, and lower the backgound. Lower it to where you get what you are looking for. Then finish it up

This is the last of it, you will have a pattern such as you see I created.

BJB feel free to step in and give your instructions as to how you use shadermap pro. I know he has written a documentation he may want to share so ask him for it.

Oh excuse my writting on the images.

eelamb
04-08-2012, 12:55 PM
Play with the images, for the better you handle the image before taking it into shadermap pro, the better your pattern will turn out. THis is where you will spend most of your time. Look for nice clean images, and then gray color them. It only takes a few minutes in shadermap por to generate the displacement map for loading into designer. If what you made is not gooe enough, then do it again. The more you work with the image, the better the pattern will be. What I did was a fast down and dirty gray coloring for a demo only. The pattern would be done a lot better if you really think about what the outcome will be. Remember you have 256 shades of gray to work with. Change the dark lines between sections and so on the change the heights before taking it into shadermap pro.

gregsolano
04-08-2012, 03:17 PM
Thanks for the lesson, It is greatly appreciated.

eelamb
04-08-2012, 04:16 PM
I should mention basically the same end results can be obtained by using paint.net or gimp2, by opening your file, convert to gray scale or color it in like I showed, blacken the background, and clean up the noise if the file is a jpg, then add +2 for paint.net blur/gaussian blur or +9 for gimp2. Then import the image to designer. Now this process works best with clipart, or or images such as paintings. Photo's will work but here again the colors do not convert right, and all you get is a smoother result than just importing directly into designer.

seathis
04-08-2012, 07:01 PM
Wow, thank you so much. That was a tremendous help and I appreciate your time for doing that for us.

seathis
04-08-2012, 07:57 PM
Also, a question please. I can go through all the steps, but can't seem to save the results. Do you know if that is because I'm trying it out in Demo mode, the free version?

eelamb
04-08-2012, 08:59 PM
I have never used the demo version, but a lot of demo versions will not allow you to save your work. That may be the case with shadermap pro demo. Yet if you have a screen capture you can grab the image and do the rest.

Are you clicking on the generate button next to displacement (top left). If so and you still can not save then do a capture of the image (vista, and win7 it is called snipping tool) and save that image to finish up. That way you can see the end results before buying shadermap pro.

Edit: when you click on generate, you will see a bar moving across the middle of screen, it is saving your work. Look in the folder you opened the image in and see if you see the image there, with the suffix of _disp added to the image name.

bjbethke
04-08-2012, 11:32 PM
Fo those wishing to learn some pattern making, there is a great little program that will only take a few hours to learn. The real learning curve is learning how to work withe the images. By shading them the way you want to get the heights necessary to creat a good pattern.

Shader map pro http://shadermap.com/

This program is called shader map pro, and only cost $19.95, but has a free version (CL). Shader map pro for vista and win 7 must be installed as administrator or it will error out on starting.

The following post will deal with a quick learning and set up of shader map pro, where I will show you some images of the process I use. BJB uses shader map pro, and has gotten quite good with it. I actually use MoI3d and ZBrush, but still revert to shader map pro for the easy clip art type patterns. The patten I will show you took about 15 minutes from start to finish. You will also need an image editing program such as paint.net or gimp2.

Ok here goes, the frist two are dealing with the images. Load the image, and fill in the areas with shades of gray. Where lighter gray is higher, and darker grays are lower. And change the background to BLACK. Last image is the image I used, save it and play with it to understand the process.

Eddie, I have a short PDF on how I use the ShaderMap Pro program. You can do a lot of things with that program, but I only use parts of the controls to make patterns for the CW Unit and lock out the ones I dont want to use. I did write a PDF on the controls - not sure where that at now. I need to redo it.

Line drawings work the best to make PTN's, I also use Animal Silhouettes (Use the Inverse image). If you save the Normal file you can see how the Pos and Neg image will look like carved (Blue image)

lawrence
04-09-2012, 08:15 AM
thank you for the tut-- I look forward to trying it out.

Lawrence

seathis
04-09-2012, 01:01 PM
Nope, no 'save' progress bar running across the screen, and no saved image. So I guess I can't save in demo mode. But I did try a screen capture on the image as you suggested and there was a marked improvement overall. Therefore, I'll spring for the $20. And I can see what you mean about cleaning up the image before it even gets to Shadermap. I think playing around with shades will help a lot. And I will read the tutorial on Shadermap now that I get an idea of what the software can do. Once again, I appreciate the help.

eelamb
04-09-2012, 08:41 PM
You can take the image such as I showed, clean it up, and bring into shadermap without graying the sections, but it will give you one height for all sections. I like using the shades to get various heights of the sections. Once in designer, you can use PE (askbud has nice tut on PE) to clean it up even further if you want. I find cleaning up the image before loading into shadermap, is the best route. As I stated changing the line colors between section also changes the height there. That way you do not have such a deep line between sections. Makes for a better pattern in the end.

BJB I had not thought of the normal map as showing you what the pattern will look like, good ideal. Like you BJB when I use the program I only use certain parts to make a pattern. I have not found a use for the other features it has. Maybe some day I will explore it more, but think it is mainly for texturing.

bjbethke
04-10-2012, 01:21 AM
You can take the image such as I showed, clean it up, and bring into shadermap without graying the sections, but it will give you one height for all sections. I like using the shades to get various heights of the sections. Once in designer, you can use PE (askbud has nice tut on PE) to clean it up even further if you want. I find cleaning up the image before loading into shadermap, is the best route. As I stated changing the line colors between section also changes the height there. That way you do not have such a deep line between sections. Makes for a better pattern in the end.

BJB I had not thought of the normal map as showing you what the pattern will look like, good ideal. Like you BJB when I use the program I only use certain parts to make a pattern. I have not found a use for the other features it has. Maybe some day I will explore it more, but think it is mainly for texturing.

Eddie, you can make some adjustments to the image with the ShaderMap Pro program, but most of the time I just make all the adjustments with PhotoShop. Here is a short PDF.

eelamb
04-10-2012, 06:41 AM
True there are adjustments for each of the maps on the bottom left.

Ton80
07-17-2012, 08:34 PM
Hey guys,

I received from info on Shadermap from BJB and then found this thread searching for more info. I can't run ShaderMap cause I have a Mac and don't have a copy of Windows to load but I am able to play around with CrazyBump which I think is similar to Shadermap.

Are you using a combination of the different maps or just the Normal maps which seem to be shown in most of the posts?

Also, what is it that a program like Shadermap does that doesn't happen in a application like GIMP where you use grayscale colors and Gaussian Blur?

Interesting stuff and I'm surprised this thread didn't get more activity..

eelamb
07-17-2012, 09:06 PM
There is another thread dealing with shadermap pro, showing other examples. I believe it is around Mar of 2010.
BJB shows the normal maps for it represents more or less what you will have when imported into designer. The actual method is to use the displacement map, which is a Gaussian blur.
I currently use Moi3d for sweeps, vector drawing, extrude, revolve, twist, join, chamfer, fillet, offset, planar, loft, bend, network, carve, hide, trim, and extend. In vector it has line, poly line (connected lines), freeform which include control points, through points, and sketch. Then rectangle, using center to outside, corer to corner, and three points, followed by polygon/star, circles, arc, elipse, spiral, along with solids of spheres, cylinders, cubes and rectangles. It also includes image view for tracing, and objects move, mirror, array, align, orient, copy, rotate, and scale. From there I go into Zbrush to sculpt. But scrultris is free and does a lot of the same.

Moi saves in OBJ, STL, AI, igs, 3dm and a lot more. Price is only $295.
At times I do use a quad program. I am learning Modo at this time.

seathis
07-18-2012, 05:30 PM
Since I read this thread several months ago, I use SMP all the time. Question is, did you find tutorials for Moi or did you learn it by using? I've tried following John's tutorials and appreciate them, but I think I need something a bit more basic. Like starting from scratch basic. Any idea where I can find them? I'm using their trial software now but doubt I'll purchase unless I can get more of an idea what I am doing with it.
Thank you as always.

eelamb
07-18-2012, 07:35 PM
There are a lot of tutorials here http://moi3d.com/resources. I believe some are videos, and there will be many more available soon. Watch the 3rd party software area for when.
I learned from the site above and from experimenting.

you would need stl importer to import the stl files into designer.

Ton80
07-19-2012, 08:02 AM
There is another thread dealing with shadermap pro, showing other examples. I believe it is around Mar of 2010.
BJB shows the normal maps for it represents more or less what you will have when imported into designer. The actual method is to use the displacement map, which is a Gaussian blur.
I currently use Moi3d for sweeps, vector drawing, extrude, revolve, twist, join, chamfer, fillet, offset, planar, loft, bend, network, carve, hide, trim, and extend. In vector it has line, poly line (connected lines), freeform which include control points, through points, and sketch. Then rectangle, using center to outside, corer to corner, and three points, followed by polygon/star, circles, arc, elipse, spiral, along with solids of spheres, cylinders, cubes and rectangles. It also includes image view for tracing, and objects move, mirror, array, align, orient, copy, rotate, and scale. From there I go into Zbrush to sculpt. But scrultris is free and does a lot of the same.

Moi saves in OBJ, STL, AI, igs, 3dm and a lot more. Price is only $295.
At times I do use a quad program. I am learning Modo at this time.

I found the thread but unfortunately all the sample images you attached are gone :roll:

farmer
05-09-2013, 06:32 PM
what is the difference between ShaderMap 2 and ShaderMap Pro if I go to shadermap.com it shows shadermap 2 ?

eelamb
05-09-2013, 09:09 PM
Farmer, As with any software they upgrade it making it better for what it is intended. Shadermap pro and shadermap 2 are the same thing. 2 is just the newer version with more features, most are not needed for what you want to do in making patterns. The basics is still the same load an image, generate the displacement map. But as mentioned many times how you work the image before loading it, makes all the differences in the world as to how the pattern comes out.
If you buy it install it as administrator if usng vista or win7 or 8.