Slope and height

[Pancho]

How do I access the slope in the texture editor? I have seen that it is available in some kind of snow shader, but how do I access it for my own purposes? Also the y position could be used to texture different things. Do these things for the first time in SI, so it is a bit tedious ...

Do I need to create these things as weightmaps via ICE?

Thanks for any advice!
Pancho

[mattmos]

You don't have to create these in the ice tree, though it might give you more flexibility down the line when adding variation.

For the heightmap, apply an xy texture projection, and give the material a gradient (black to white or whatever) set the grad to vertical, and use to drive a mixer node.

For the slope, not using the old shader, could try using an incidence node set to +Y axis and play around with the bias and gain. Can combine it with a weightmap to isolate the effect to a particular area?

[Pancho]

Thanks Matt,

it's kind of funny. If you know a few packages you start to love certain ways to work. If one software lacks it, you feel a bit disabled and simple things start to become tricky. As much as Lightwave sucks in many ways, it's node based and procedural texturing approach is quite great, while the hundred+ compounds in SI are a bit intimidating.

Cheers
Pancho

[mattmos]

yeah I can't begin to defend the procedural texturing capabilities of si, they're shocking! The stock procedurals have been around since v01 and not updated. Enhance xsi did some great textures, but they're mental ray only so anyone using vray or arnold is out of luck.

[Hirazi Blue]

so anyone using (...) arnold is out of luck.

That's the first time I heard anyone mentioning Arnold users as being out of luck.