Grit Plugin

[VitoVonAntwon]

Hi,

These images are using stock models, some from this site, and others I found on the web.
I was testing the grit plugin. The new node version is very interesting.

Works with fprime 3.

I Run a Lightwave User Group at nyclightwave.com

VitoVonAntwon

[Meurig]

Your renders desperately need higher AA, the last one particularly. They're a decent start, though they would do well for some tidying up in areas, the AA will certainly help that.

What's the grit plugin do, then? Since neither the original Narcissus nor Nostromo are orange, I'm guessing it's to do with the dirt shader you've got going on there.

[jorjo]

Nice one Meurig, straight in with the welcome wagon !

@Vito, thanks for reminding us about the grit plug, I hadn't realised it was updated for nodes, I like the results you are getting with it in your tests Please do not assume that we are all anal about AA, your trest render show the effect of the grit plugin very effectively. Is the nodal version hosted on the old site?

[AcidBurn]

Hey there Meurig,

So you think grit is any good then??

[jorjo]

Hey there Meurig,

So you think grit is any good then??


it can be tricky to set up but it always did a good job of adding grit and grime into the nooks and cranny's of a mesh in much the same way as the AO shadier, only as dirt instead of shading. well worth having for the day you need such a thing

[Meurig]

Hey there Meurig,

So you think grit is any good then??

I'm guessing that was aimed at jorjo not me, but still....

Dunno! That's why I asked. Any shader which adds automatic grime in less exposed nooks and crannies is always going to be useful because it adds realism. I've seen TB_Dirt before now, and quite honestly wasn't that impressed with it. I found the results to look more like bland smudges around edges rather than effective dirt. If Grit is better then it's one to check out. However, with low res renders and harsh aliasing it's distracting and harder to see what's being focused on, especially on models where the detail is very small and fiddly like the Narcissus and Nostromo. It's not to say it's bad, all of the shots look like solid foundations for nice space shots, they just need that extra bit of attention to really stand out :)

[Woody]

Welcome aboard Vito. It's a pleasure to have you with us, and thank you for posting.
It's hard for me to see what exactly this shader is accomplishing. Would it be possible
to post a "before/after" sort of image showing it's effect?
I have not used it before, though I have used the AO plugin with some success, I prefer
to UV and paint dirt directly...though circumstances (and sometimes budgets)
always dictate how much time and effort can go into something. :p

[Irrational]

Grit is pretty good if you've got the spare time/horsepower for rendering. It's very, very slow.

[VitoVonAntwon]

Hi,

I think I did use aa on some of these. I don't remember.

Yes Grit does get slow. I'll post some of the other tests I did. I'm not so great at the node system yet. But I think you can get results that really you can't get the old way.

I'll post the example that one guy did from the grit website. (I found the link on flay.com)

The images have names like nogrit, difbump etc and those where the channels I was messing with.

[Oscaron]

Open question to anyone:

If you did use nodes to 'grit', would you use a function of occlusion on luminosty and apply the grunge effect upon those areas being shaded from that result?

Just seeing if I understand some of the logic of it.

[Meurig]

Open question to anyone:

If you did use nodes to 'grit', would you use a function of occlusion on luminosty and apply the grunge effect upon those areas being shaded from that result?

Just seeing if I understand some of the logic of it.

You can use occlusion as a mask for procedural dirt, if that's what you're asking? It's a nice and effective way of getting procedurally dirtied crevices, albeit in a less easily controllable way compared to hand painted maps. The grit-ing above is being done with a third party plugin that doesn't involve occlusion shaders at all though, as far as I can tell.

[VitoVonAntwon]

This is an example, I got this from an image included in the zip of grit node. (Well, I added the extra grit node there for diffuse, it's probally not smart to have a grit node feed into another grit node.) Also some of the images below, I started using image maps to feed into the grit controls. That seemed to add some control.

Antonio

In the nostromo, it produced those darker beige areas around where polys intersect.
One problem I've encountered is some way to reduce the grit in areas.
I wonder if you could use a weigt map, and draw in the areas you want gritted.

Also i would have to say, after you like what it did, there must be a way to bake the whole thing on. Anybody know how to do that? Surface Baking a plugin? It would then render a whole lot faster.

VitoVontwon

[Oscaron]

You can use occlusion as a mask for procedural dirt, if that's what you're asking? It's a nice and effective way of getting procedurally dirtied crevices, albeit in a less easily controllable way compared to hand painted maps. The grit-ing above is being done with a third party plugin that doesn't involve occlusion shaders at all though, as far as I can tell.

Thanks M,

I understand about the plug-in, but the occlusion/luminosity thing was one of the 'connection-making' moments in my head that I needed to confirm to see if I understood some basic theory.

Computer harware logic is old-hat for me, shader-logic is not.

My appreciation to those willing to help us less-skilled users.

[VitoVonAntwon]

The front loader has slight problem, look at where the hand rail goes into the body. I think it sampled all the cylinder poly's and the grit had a rather sharp falloff there. So it produced a star pattern. It's a good example of how it's working but not a desired result. Look at the hitch in the back though, that worked out. ALso the tires have the grit plugin which is neat (mud) I will mess around with that to see I I can make it more bump mapped to simulate mud.

(from the images on the bottom.)

VitoVonAntwon

[VitoVonAntwon]

Thanks M,

I understand about the plug-in, but the occlusion/luminosity thing was one of the 'connection-making' moments in my head that I needed to confirm to see if I understood some basic theory.

Computer harware logic is old-hat for me, shader-logic is not.

My appreciation to those willing to help us less-skilled users.

Fprime really helps. Try out a simple object with that has some nurnies. I should problablly do that too, I think using the nostormo to test out grit was probablly not the best choice, (but fun to do) Because grit is kinda slow. But the tests from the nostomo worked fairly well on the front loader with little fussing.

Vito

[VitoVonAntwon]

Hi,

Ok as per request side by side grit and no grit.
And the node shot next to it.
I used incidence node to see what that would do.
I also used smaller image sizes.

It's interesting. But not so easy to control. I think Grit has it's place.
Anyone care to take it up a notch.

Does anyone know of a website that has information on lightwave nodes besides newtek.

I tried to upload a .node file but It didn't work. maybe an admin can make that a valid file type.

VitoVonAntwon

[DorchaMéaróg]

For the life of me, I've never been able to get the Grit pluging to work properly for me (I always get these wierd magenta artifacts in the images)...

[Oscaron]

I tried to upload a .node file but It didn't work. maybe an admin can make that a valid file type.

Wrap it in a zip file along with a text file that describes the who, what, when, where and why :)

[BillS]

Wrap it in a zip file along with a text file that describes the who, what, when, where and why :)

You should also add to the file a link to where to get the grit plugin from since LW won't be able to make heads or tails of the node without it being added first. :)

[Oscaron]

Nodal Grit for LW 9.x here:

http://katastro.fi/~eetu/gritnode/

[TheGreatRaja]

The loader looks really low poly and the other shots looks pasted on, as if the models are of a bit sharper than the background image of.

The Git node looks good

[VitoVonAntwon]

The loader looks really low poly and the other shots looks pasted on, as if the models are of a bit sharper than the background image of.

The Git node looks good

How would you deal with that problem Raja. (use aftereffects.) I've never really figured out a good solution except to use third party, with alpha maps.

I tried this sometimes.
BLur and noise. I remember a decent plugin that you coud use
in lightwave effects/processing/fullprecisionblur and then effects/processing/digitaldarkroom Use the kodack preset.

This is a whole sepearte thread. Just for kicks I used the 2 above settings, and got another iteration. Mabye set the blur to 1 instead of 2. seems to have made the image darker, should of used photoshop to lighten it up. I think there is another effect called exposure you could use in lightwave.(I was using hdri lighting) (ignore the hypervoxals, for some reason some of them were rendered infront not behind the ship.)

These are all really tests of the grit plugin. The front loader is a free object I found on the web. It's not bad for free. There are links to it at nyclightwave.com. Under directory goto weblinks and cars. There was a website full of lightwave objects, like the front loader.



VIto

[VitoVonAntwon]

From our december challenege, www.nyclightwave.com

Can you guess what object this is?

[Meurig]

The Sulaco as a building, random!

Came out quite nicely though it'd be nice to see more detail in the textures.

[thedoctor75147]

great work

[ƒel!pe]

Good work.
For a better realism in a 3D integration, you might change the 3D render.
3D render is too perfect. Add some noise and perhaps a Vignetting.
Do you understand ? (my english is so bad)

[darkstar240261]

nice work

[archibold]

Some good work

[John Marchant]

Old thread i know but does anyone have a mini tut or node setup to get this working i would love to use it.

[3D_CG]

VitoVonAntwon

Could you post the surface preset ??? u used ??

please ..

[JackN]

here's a link to the site to get it from:

http://katastro.fi/~eetu/grit3/