Matcap shader for Softimage

[Matic]

Hi all. I'm no shader guru but I've banged together a Matcap shader (aka litsphere) in metaSL which works in the Softimage High Quality viewport.

You know how in Zbrush models look kind of like clay or other materials as you work on them? That's Matcap shading.

[rimg=540]http://andy.moonbase.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/metaSL_litsphere3.jpg[/rimg]

It's provided "as-is" but since its metaSL it should work for everyone regardless of graphics card as well as look the same in HQ/real time, and mental ray. That's the theory, anyway.

You'll find it on my blog http://andy.moonbase.net

- cheers, I hope it's of use to some of you.

[Falam]

Hi all. I'm no shader guru but I've banged together a Matcap shader (aka litsphere) in metaSL which works in the Softimage High Quality viewport.

You know how in Zbrush models look kind of like clay or other materials as you work on them? That's Matcap shading.

[rimg=540]http://andy.moonbase.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/metaSL_litsphere3.jpg[/rimg]

It's provided "as-is" but since its metaSL it should work for everyone regardless of graphics card as well as look the same in HQ/real time, and mental ray. That's the theory, anyway.

You'll find it on my blog http://andy.moonbase.net

- cheers, I hope it's of use to some of you.

That is neat, thank you. Do MetaSL shaders work with RenderMan compliant renders ?

[aio]

Thanks, this is huge for NPR images

[mattmos]

I've always been jealous of the zbrush viewport shading, thanks for sharing matic!

[Qwesto]

Actually, Helge Mathee did one a long time ago, which is not just RT, but 2 compounds incl. a renderable version, too. I don't know, if it might be used with the HQ viewport as well...

[gustavoeb]

Well, MetaSL shaders can be rendered in MR too...

[Matic]

This shader renders in MR and the high quality viewport alike, as GB suggests (btw I'm a fan of your blog bro.)

A basic matcap shader like this is super simple, so I could probably make an RSL equivalent but I'd be surprised if there isn't one out there already. The main goal for this was to have something simple to use with the high quality viewport... What's nice about matcaps is that all of the lighting etc is effectively baked into the texture, meaning matcap images should look basically the same across zbrush, Softimage, Renderman whatever.

I didn't know Helge made a similar shader, thats cool, if you can find a link I'd love to look at it! The more solutions we have in this area, the better, matcaps can be a very powerful tool, as the Zbrush community shows. I'd be thrilled if someone better at shader dev than me would come along and blow my little shader out of the water, I just got tired of matcaps for Softimage not being convenient.

I may improve the shader with some of the goodies Zbrush includes in their matcap implementation, but im a particle guy not a shader dev and metaSL hardly has any documentation so the going will be slow.

Cheers - AM

[ActionArt]

That's really interesting. Would it be possible to share some of the nice textures you've made, just so we're not re-inventing the wheel? They look pretty useful.

[Mathaeus]

Just for info, there is a custom Mental Ray "MatCap" shader for a long time, by Stefan Minning. However there's question, how to incorporate it into standard lighting system - as it actually ignores any kind of light, direct or indirect.
At least, that's reason I never tried to cook something in ICE, along this line, especially with 3delight - as it already have it's own subsurface scattering.

[Matic]

@mathaeus awesome that there's another one out there. I'll give it a look!

Yes, there are a couple of downsides to using matcaps for "final" texturing. They ignore all lighting, and because they are oriented in camera space the illusion of lighting a matcap provides can look odd with camera moves.

As such, it is really best for the roles similar to how zbrush uses them - for a pleasing/artistic shading while sculpting and modeling and as a way to bypass getting into more sophisticated/time consuming lighting for stills, and to render stills in a realtime engine. Because of their performance and uses with NPR they are also used for some side-scroller games (where the camera is generally not changing orientation) and the like.

Zbrush users also tend to bake them down to models for further texturing and later animation.

@actionart - the textures I used are all from the web, you'll find many thousands of them. http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... repository has a ton (get the image files, not .zmt which cant be converted) and a google image search for "matcap" will yield a ton more. The images on my site also mostly include the matcaps used so if you want those specifically just take the screenshot and crop the matcap image, they should be 1:1)

[ActionArt]

Thanks!

[Tekano]

yeah I remember when decent matcaps first came out on zbrush, 28th May 2007 it was. tried them as images applied to the greyball type shader in SI from that very repository and was like 'meh' seems they have come back again! think it was just the MR shader version though so do not recall a realtime one, not had the pleasure of it in the viewport. I see it like the spongebob squarepants replacement skin for the viewcube. really cool to try a few of the different skins out but the novelty soon wears off. think last time I got as far as green Jelly or tomato. the clay one is the best and as Andy says there is a lot of potential for NPR type stuff. but I dont do any sculpting much in the viewport so I may be biased and viewcube is OFF.

[Falam]

yeah I remember when decent matcaps first came out on zbrush, 28th May 2007 it was. tried them as images applied to the greyball type shader in SI from that very repository and was like 'meh' seems they have come back again! think it was just the MR shader version though so do not recall a realtime one, not had the pleasure of it in the viewport. I see it like the spongebob squarepants replacement skin for the viewcube. really cool to try a few of the different skins out but the novelty soon wears off. think last time I got as far as green Jelly or tomato. the clay one is the best and as Andy says there is a lot of potential for NPR type stuff. but I dont do any sculpting much in the viewport so I may be biased and viewcube is OFF.

You have a point, a clay MetCap would be useful. I'll still use it occasionally

[Firebird]

Hi thanks for the shader.

Helge Mathee also did a MatCap shader 2009 I think. Which I used a bit. So I attached it if anyone wants to take a look.

I got a collection of textures. The zip got 13MB so I would need a filehoster if anyone is interested, its over the limit of the forum attachments.

PS: Is there a way to install the msl over a workgroup ?
Just putting it in Application\phenolib\msl on a workgroup didn´t work.



Moderator edit: Filehoster? Ha! - HB
The aforementioned file in three pieces...
MatCap_materials.part1.rar
MatCap_materials.part2.rar
MatCap_materials.part3.rar

[Hirazi Blue]

PS: Is there a way to install the msl over a workgroup ?
Just putting it in Application\phenolib\msl on a workgroup didn´t work.

Perhaps - I haven't tested this however - equivalent/analogous to the workgroup location of (unsupported legacy) cgfx files in a new folder "[workgroup]\Application\msl\".
Spoiler alert: THIS IS HOWEVER PURELY GUESSWORK ;)

[Falam]

Softimage crashes everytime I use this shader on High Quality Viewport
I did what the readme states, I connected this shader to the surface port on the material, wait a few seconds, Softimage crashes.

Here is the Matcap shader as seen on a sphere, which surprisingly enough didn't crash softimage, although I doubt it should look like a texture image is applied to the sphere, even if it is meant to be a reflection map, unless I'm missing something, there is no reflection port on the material node ?