ZBrush4 Materials
From ZBrush Info
There is a new menu in the Materials palette - the Shader Mixer. This provides options for changing how the different shader channels that make up a material interact. It is particularly useful if you want to change transparency or subsurface scattering effects. Each Shader channel can have its own settings within the Material >> Shader Mixer menu.
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Shader Mixer
The Shader Mixer settings are bound to a shader. When selecting a material or a MatCap™, you can copy and paste its shader to another Material to create a new one or variations. The Shader Mixer settings are copied at the same time.
- Fresnel: Fresnel blending effect. Shader mixing is calculated based on the normals of the mesh. Higher values give a stronger effect.
- F Exp: The Fresnel exponent. Set this slider to adjust the falloff of the fresnel effect.
- SSS: Subsurface scattering strength. Shader mixing is based on the thickness of the mesh. Higher values give a stronger effect.
- Front: Subsurface scattering will be rendered for the front of the object.
- S Exp: The SSS exponent. Set this slider to adjust the falloff of the subsurface scattering effect.
- BlendMode: Click this button and select a blend mode from the list of options.
- OnBlack: Blending of each shader channel starts from black. When this button is off blending is cumulative.
- MinOpacity: Subsurface minimum opacity. Set this slider to adjust the minimum opacity for the subsurface scattering blend colors.
- MaxOpacity: Subsurface maximum opacity. Set this slider to adjust the maximum opacity for the subsurface scattering blend colors.
- PreviewOpacity: Adjust this slider to change the look of the material in Preview render mode when adjusting the SSS parameters. Setting the slider to show the approximate effect of SSS can be useful when balancing with other materials and effects. This slider has no effect on a BPR or Best Render.
Note: When working with materials you may find it useful to turn off the Preferences>Interface>One Open Subpalette button. This will mean you can have the Shader Mixer and Modifiers menus open at the same time. Alternatively, you can Shift+click on the specific menus you would like to stay open.
Light palette
Best Preview Rendering of shadows and subsurface scattering can be turned on or off for any light by pressing the Shadow or SSS buttons. Note that these options will only work for Sun-type lights.
Phong to Blinn specular
The default shaders now include a Phong to Blinn specular slider, which lets you change the type of specularity. At 0 you have full Phong specularity and at 100 you have full Blinn specularity.
Blinn specularity provides a more realistic specular effect for skin materials.
MatCap™ Blur and Overwrite color
Overwrite Color is new to all MatCap™ materials. The slider will overwrite any color change when a material has not been filled with any color. At 0, when the Main Color in the color picker is changed that color will be adjusted on all SubTools that do not have a fill color. When the slider is set to 1, no color will be changed when selecting any color in the Main Color picker.
The Blur slider will apply an overall blur to the whole MatCap.
Fast Overlay and Fresnel Overlay shaders
Two new materials have been added, mainly to be mixed with other materials to create complex shaders:
- Fast Overlay: This shader creates a simple overlay of color when mixed with other materials.
- Fresnel Overlay: This shader creates a radial gradient by using different colors and settings, resulting in a Fresnel effect.
