ZBrushCentral

Adding a new Shader Channel

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I can’t seem to find a document or tutorial on how to add (or remove) shading channels from a material. I am wondering if anyone can help me with this- currently I am adjusting materials that already have multiple channels. Maybe its a programing thing and above my understanding :slight_smile:

Craig

#2

It would be nice to have a simple two button solution to add or delete shader channels but there isn’t.

My only solution which you likely have also discovered is to construct new materials with more shader channels by hand:

  1. select another material that already has the number of channels I need and make that the new TARGET material.
  2. Then simply locate some other existing material and copy an existing channel containing the proper parameters.
  3. Reload the new TARGET material.
  4. Select the correct TARGET channel.
    5.PASTE in the copied channel.
  5. Repeat cutting and pasting from existing materials until the new TARGET material has all the channels containing the proper parameters.
  6. Finally, save this newly constructed TARGET material as a template for future material creations.

The whole construction process is a bit of a pain that could be streamlined through ZScripting (I’ve done something like the above inside a ZScript material editor I was designing.)

There are a few cautions worth mentioning. First, the order of shaders is significant… there are some which can only be in the first shader channel though I’ve never established any definitive list. The Glow shader (and materials) can fairly easily crash ZB3 though I’ve seen in another thread recently that there is a work-around for that. Mixing matcap and non-matcap shaders can be confusing. Also, the appearance of many shader effects aren’t evident until a Best Render is applied (Preview mode rendering in ZB2 was much more helpful than with ZB3.)

One other really helpful feature would be a way to temporarily disable individual shader channel(s) to see what is being contributed to the new material by the remaining active channels. I’d like to see something like that added in ZB4 as well. (I also managed to simulate a channel disabler in my unfinished material editor and found it very helpful.)

I expect most of these shortcomings will be resolved with the release of ZB4… with new and improved materials handling.:smiley:

Sven

#3

Thank you very much