ShaderMap Pro

[ODdOnLifeItself]

For anyone doing 3D work, who sometimes needs Displacement, Normal, Specular, or Ambient Occlusion Maps; I highly recommend picking up ShaderMap Pro.

It costs less than 15 € (< $20 U.S.) and makes the creating (and fine-tuning!) of these types of maps much, much easier. The interface and settings are intuitive and easy to use and it comes with a nice 3D preview mode so that you can see what you're doing to your "object" as you change its respective maps.

Below are two images of a simple cylinder...the first one is without ShaderMap Pro's Maps and the second one is with...





Here's a couple more without/with ShaderMap Pro's maps:


Using Gare's Seamless Tile (from another thread)



Take care

James

P.S. Virtually all 3D packages allow the usage of these maps, they're not Blender-specific.

[guyke]

I might get it. Until now I work with the free version, but it's a bit clumsy with the command line interface.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Guy,

Yeah, I was using the command line interface too, but then had some that were close but needed some adjustment in settings. Rather than feeling around in the dark and then changing the settings (the *'s in the command line) point by point til I got it, going back and forth...settings...load...view...settings...load.. .view...; I decided to go ahead and "splurge". There is a Demo that works (all but the save, of course), if you'd like to check it out. The full-version also does batch loads of images (create all the accompanying maps for a whole selection of files) and will give you the equivalent Command Line reference that ShaderMap CL needs to replicate what is seen.

Maybe take a look at the demo and see if it seems worth the expenditure.

Either version of ShaderMap (Pro or CL) makes a large difference when mapping textures. If one uses the Normal and Specular maps instead of using Displacement, there's not a lot of overhead, since no new faces are created. (such as the many, many that displacements need)

My Wife ordered ShaderMap Pro after we were talking about it...so last night and today am spending some time with a few experiments.

Take care,

James

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Just playing around...getting a feel for the interaction of the various maps...





James

[wizard509]

Those look good James.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Thanks, Larry

Was just playing around with the textures and the assorted maps.

Obviously the scale is off... either it's a very small sign-holding cylinder and room OR those are some might big rocks!

Still, it was a lot of fun and I learned a couple of things...

Peace

James