Shader Man On-Line Documentation

NEW FEATURES and INTERFACE

The image above is a screen shot of the "Flame" shader in ShaderMan 2.0. We will use this as a guideline for all of the new interface features since they all share the same general layout.

Envelopes: Parameters that have this control associated with them are now completely envelopable! Shaderman's envelopes works just like LightWave's envelopes. If you are unfamiliar with envelopes, consult the LightWave reference manual.

Parameter Reference Objects:
The Parameter reference object works similarly to LightWave's Texture reference object. The popup contains names of all lights, bones, and objects in you scene. The default for all the shaders should be "none". If you choose to use a reference object, the positional and scaling data of the object will be use to control the specified parameter. This means that the surface parameters (like position) can change dynamically based on the motion of an object in a scene (including NULL objects). This is a very powerful feature and extends ShaderMan's flexibility tenfold.

Parameter reference objects work differently depending on what parameter they modify. The proper usage is as follows:

Texture Size: the x,y,z scaling of the reference object affects this parameter.
Texture Center: the x,y,z position values of the reference object affects this parameter.
Texture Velocity: The velocity of the texture depends on the actual velocity of the reference object.

Preview window:

With ShaderMan 2.0 there is no need to close down the plugin window to do a sample render. There is a sample sphere rendering window built right into ShaderMan! Just click in the window for a sample rendering!

Not only can you view your texture settings, you can also preview the animation settings on your surface by scrubbing the frame slider back and fourth. The range of the frames should be the same as the maximum number of frames you have in your scene. NOTE: setting the last frame next to the preview controls will not work. In Layout, you must go into the "Render" panel and set the last frame there.