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Animated Shader VFX in Carrara

DesertDudeDesertDude Posts: 1,235
edited January 15 in Carrara Discussion

Hi everyone!

A while back I started watching tutorials demonstrating real time shader effects for video games and I was thinking, we can totally do these things in Carrara. There are so many cool things you can achieve manipulating the UV space and stacking up various Operators like Multiply, Add and Subtract etc.

I didn't really know where to start, then Wendy recently asked a question about having a UV offset parameter and...Carrara has just such a feature introduced in 8.5. This is a fairly easy example to set up, so let's jump in!

Fire up Carrara and create a new scene
Insert a Vertex Object.
In the Vertex Room, go to Construct > Insert 3D > Grid.

 

insert_grid.jpg
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Post edited by DesertDude on

Comments

  • DesertDudeDesertDude Posts: 1,235
    edited January 15

    I set my U & V Size to .5m and the U Vertex count to 2 and the V Vertex Count to 32. On the Perpendicular thingy select the ‘Z’ axis and hit OK.

    You should now have a strip of polygons like this

     

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    grid_settings.jpg
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    Post edited by DesertDude on
  • DesertDudeDesertDude Posts: 1,235
    edited January 15

    Go to UV Editing Mode. If you select the top row of vertices running down the Y axis and the edge on the far left you’ll notice they are facing the wrong way on the UV grid. Select the whole object, and rotate it 90 degrees to the right.

     

    Now the UV map is facing the right direction

     

    For good measure I go to the Operation Tab and hit ‘Fit UVs’.

     

    uv_start.jpg
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    uv_rotate.jpg
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    fit_uvs.jpg
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    Post edited by DesertDude on
  • DesertDudeDesertDude Posts: 1,235
    edited January 15

    Now manipulate the geometry however you like.

     

    Create a new Shader for your object and head on over to the Shader room. We will do this simple test in the Color Channel. From the drop down menu go to Operators > UV Transform. For the Shader slot, choose Texture Map.

     

    For this test I am using a picture of an arrow. When first loaded, the arrow will look completely stretched out. If we change the Scaling on the ‘X’ we can tile the image. I chose .05 and that filled my geometry with little arrows.

    manipulated_geo.jpg
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    uv_transform_x_scale.jpg
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    arrow_texture_map.jpg
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    uv_follow_geo_001.jpg
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  • DesertDudeDesertDude Posts: 1,235
    edited January 15

    I made a 6 second animation test. Drag the playhead down to the end of your animation and from the UV Transform box, change the Offset for ‘X’ to 1. This will slide the UV space once over the texture map. Now the arrows follow the geometry like a path.

    Final animation test, looped twice:

    uv_x_offset.png
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    Post edited by DesertDude on
  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,213
    edited January 15

    thanks for the tutorial DesertDude yes

    I did play with it myself, I even played with the same thing in DAZ studio and Casual's Matanim

    but in my current scenario ended up going back to PhotoMirage and rendering a 900 frame animation of the waterfall foam texture because the looping the offset just didn't look right on that particular scene

    it certainly will work for other scenes where a regular loop needed like a tank tread

     

    this was the DAZ studio one, Carrara it looked much the same but I never rendered it as was not what I wanted but yes it worked

    the Carrara 900 frame opacity foam maps one I ended up doing

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • DesertDudeDesertDude Posts: 1,235

    Cool and thanks!

    The water in the second animation looks fantastic. yes

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,213
    edited January 15

    DesertDude said:

    Cool and thanks!

    The water in the second animation looks fantastic. yes

    LOL yes PhotoMirage which I used on the texture maps is pretty awesome just on the rendered images, it really shines used on textures like smoke, clouds and fire too 

    I combined it with using an ocean primitive

    there are some cheaper AI based programs that do this out there now too (plot paths to animate on images)

    sadly cannot link any

    are free phone apps too

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,169

    DesertDude said:

    I made a 6 second animation test.

    Freaking awesome!

  • Bunyip02Bunyip02 Posts: 8,613

    Diomede said:

    DesertDude said:

    I made a 6 second animation test.

    Freaking awesome!

    +1yes

  • ed3Ded3D Posts: 2,188

    lDesertDude :   nice

  • DesertDudeDesertDude Posts: 1,235

    Diomede, Bunyip02 and ed3D, thank you for the nice comments.

    Wendy - I took a look at PhotoMirage, I think I have a better understanding of what is happening. smiley Pretty nifty!

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,213

    DesertDude said:

    Diomede, Bunyip02 and ed3D, thank you for the nice comments.

    Wendy - I took a look at PhotoMirage, I think I have a better understanding of what is happening. smiley Pretty nifty!

    yes the textures themselves flow, I use it on smoke and fire textures too

    only annoying thing is it has limited output formats mp4 and gif and set sizes

    so I just do 1920x 1080 or 1080x1920 stretching to fill as no large square option 

    then convert to image series with Hitfilm

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