vertex pixel shader?

[W!ZARD]

Hi W!ZARD here. It's been a while since I called by here but this IS where the tS experts hang out and I need some assistance. My memory is not what it was unfortunately but I have a distinct recollection about a tS DX9 shader that sort of elevated individual pixels off the surface of a textured object by a specific amount determined by Hue or Brightness. The result is a cloud of pixels hovering in space in realtime. I cannot for the life of me remember what this thing was called so searching for it has proved impossible - words like shader, pixel and vertex are so common here as to make search results too big.

If anyone can remember what this thing is called and how to use it I would be most appreciative as I'd like to use this effect in a current project I'm working on.

Thanks in advance

atb

W!ZARD

[Emmanuel]

Hello Stephen,

Glad to see you still alive (but what can we expect else from a wizard)

The shader you are thinking about could be one from Urban's. Probably from his Shady pack.
Check it here : http://tsx.uvworx.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Will you share your new tS work on the forum ? Your website's domain name seems down.

[W!ZARD]

Hi Emmanuel

Yep I'm still alive - and doing well now although I have been very ill. I'm mostly recovered from that (although my lovely partner keeps making jokes about brain damage!!). Given that I still can't remember the name of the shader I'm thinking of she's probably right!

My memory is that it's something that Caligari put out, rather than being one of Urbans. I'm hoping someone can recall it's correct name for me so I can at least search with the correct terms!

Re my new tS work and showing it on the forum, yeah I can probably post a few stills from the animation I've been working away at for the last (seems like) hundred years! In fact I believe the animation may include some modelling work that was originally yours. Didn't you have a hand in building some of the models for the shared space environments released by Caligari? (Of course my memory could be playing more tricks too!).

I will most certainly post links to the final animation/s when they're ready for public viewing but that won't be any time soon as I don't have the same amount of time available to me for pc work like I once did.

Any way, nice to touch base with you again. Take care and all the best

~W~

[Cayenne]

Hiya Wizard , Paul here ,, been a while for me here too..
I will try to hunt out the shader / object you mean , it might have been one that Norm worked on.

best regards
Paul

[clintonman]

Found it! It was created by Norm Fortier
One note I have is that it only works with flatten history type objects. It uses the shape node. When you point edit a mesh you end up with an Editable shape node.
It's called image cloud animation, but I don't see any animation on it.
It's a script not a shader.
Now that I think about it maybe this isn't what you're looking for. Still here it is just in case.

[W!ZARD]

Hey Paul and Clinton!! Nice to touch base guys! Thanks for your efforts here. Yes IIRC it was something Norm was working on and there was supposed to be a way of using an animated texture so the pixel cloud would move over time. I never figured out the animation part of it but did use just a static pixel cloud and flew my camera through it - which is sort of what I'm wanting to do for one of my current projects. I always thought it was a totally cool effect.

(runs off and boots up tS) Yay! Yeah that's it - thats exactly the thing I was after - Clinton, you ARE the Man!

This scene file contains an image cloud (just what I was after) and it's only the camera that is animated to show the depth in the pixel cloud. There was talk of being able to animate the cloud itself by using an animated reference texture but I don't know if anyone ever got that part of it working.

I'll have a play with it and see if I can animate the degree of pixel displacement over time. I want to use the effect in an animated logo sequence.

Thanks again guys - muchos gracias!

[trueBlue]

Good to hear from you W!zard!
According to Norm (by reading the script) to animate, you need to change the Bitmap. You could use an Image Sequencer, as shown.
Use the file dialog to locate the images.
Hook up the Bitmap output to the Bitmap Input.
Add the Frame attribute to the Animation Editor.
Animate the frame number over time.

You could also animate the zMult attribute which will raise or lower the vertices.
In the script this number is multiplied by 3, which could be changed as well.

I miss Norm!

Whenever I use this script it brings my video card to it's knees. I wonder if it could be optimized by using a Workspace sync method?

[W!ZARD]

Hi trueBlue Thanks for the input!

Yeah that looks right. I've actually never used an Image Sequencer in tS though it's pretty obvious what it does.

I had a play around with this a bit the other night and found that I could indeed animate the zMult attribute easily enough but it was all rather s l o w and I needed to manually update the ImageCloud gadget. It is still doable but the methodology is a bit clunky. Maybe some scriptwriter types out there can figure out a more elegant solution for using it?

As I was experimenting I tried a reference image that was comprised of geometrical shapes which gave a very cool result.

Sri Yantra - Ancient Hindu power symbol

It struck me that something like this could be really handy as a modeling reference....just a thought really.

[MikomDude]

I just tried the script and... what wizardry is this?! Oh, hi W!ZARD.

This is great though, it showed me something I thought trueSpace could never do. Just a shame I can't render it in the model-side. That being said though, it is a bunch of fun to play around with. Thanks to all of you for bringing this to my attention!

A little test I did with the picture of a motherboard, almost looks 3D

[W!ZARD]

Hi MikomDude!

Nice work but if you keep wiggling your motherboard around like that you're gonna shake loose a capacitor or two!

It's a fun thing to play with isn't it?