This
one has quite a few layers, and it uses a rough copy of the "sediment lines"
Gradient Ramp. You could just instance it, but I didn't. Why? It will all be clear
soon... Here's an image of the bump map maptree.
I've left out the water part of the bump, I'll cover that later. Below is a render
with both the diffuse and the bump map enabled.
What the s...?
•
Well
then. Again we start with a Compostite map, again to separate the water from the
rest, which means two slots. Next, put a Mix map in the first slot, name it "canyon
wall and mud bump" since that's precisely what we will be mixing there.
Before
I continue, I need to talk a little about the vertex colour mask. If you need
to adjust the transition from one map to another, you can put two vertex colour
maps on top of each other. In this case, I would put an additional Mix map in
the first slot with the Vertex Colour map as mix amount control, and the mud bump
map in the first slot, leaving the second slot empty. This will make the transition
from mud bump to canyon bump a little more abrupt, and let the mud bump area be
a little smaller. This will mostly be noticeable in the transition area, so it's
pretty subtle. Here are two images where you can compare the difference. With
the added vertex colour map, without the second
vertex colour map. So, a second Vertex Colour Map softens the transition,
but I won't be using it in this version of the shader.
That's
the one of the ways you can control the Vertex Colour map without having to repaint
it (since repainting it might destroy other maps and masks that you've setup).
The best thing would be if you had different vertex colour channels, as you have
different mapping channels. That would be awesome. But we don't, so we have to
resort to trickery. Oh well. Back to creating the bump maps.
*
There's a way to use multiple vertex colour channels in max 5 using these two
plugins: Copymap and
UVWRGB. Thanks to Reality3d for pointing it out. 3dsmax 6 comes with an improved
vertex paint modifier and 99 channels which should make this a breeze.
•
Put
an Output map in the first slot, name it "mud
bump strength control". I put this Output map there to have better control
of just how bumpy the mud will be. Since there will be many layers of bump maps,
having additional control over how much the different layers affects the end result
is very useful.
As
you can see, we once again have a Mix map on your hands. So lets fill that sucker
up. This is where the copying and instancing starts, and where you can start wiring
parameters.
•
Copy
the Mud Diffuse map to the first mix slot. Here's where you could use an instance
instead of copying since they will need to use the same settings except
the colour slots. If you do an instance, and keep the colour maps, the
mud bump won't look as cracked as it should, since the Noise maps will interfere.
There are a few ways around this:
•
Going
back to the Diffuse level, you could separate the Noise maps we put in the Cellular
with a mix map. We wouldn't get as much variation (Cellular maps come with a Variation
setting for the colour) nor control over the colour of the mud. The benefit would
be that we get a "raw" Cellular map that we can instance all over the
place, the downside is that we get an even deeper Diffuse map.
•
Second
way would be to wire the important parameters, such as Size, Spread etc. With
wiring you can have bi-directional control, so if you change the size in the diffuse
version, the bump version will change too. Very handy. The downside is that it's
a bit of a mess to try and link the right parameters together, many levels to
wade through to get to the right place. Also, wiring might cause max to be a little
unstable.
•
Third
way is just manually copy values and never change them again (as if that would
ever happen).
•
Going
back up a level, we put an Output map in the second slot of the Mix map, name
it "mud bump strength control".
This one, together with the mix amount map, will preserve the cracks, but give
the flat areas a soft bump. The Output map is there to give us finer control over
how much it will affect the end result.
Back
up one level and instance the Cellular in mix slot 1, the one I have so fittingly
named "same settings as colour mud" to the mix ammount slot. Thus the
dark areas, the cracks, will be sharp and the flat areas, the "chunks",
will recieve a slight bump. Since it's supposed to look as if water has been running
over the mud, having a strong bump is not what we're after, but having perfectly
flat surfaces is also a big no-no. So just slip that Electric map in there with
an easy to control instance and you get a soft bump which fades into the cracks
nicely.
Lets
move on to the canyon wall bump.
Bump maps continued
Now
that the mud is finished, lets tackle the canyon wall bump. A couple of words
of advice before I start. I started out with big bump maps, then proceeded to
layer progressively smaller bump maps to get fine detail, and to make sure the
there wouldn't be any areas that were flat (sort of how painters block out the
shapes first and then proceed to add finer and finer detail). Since I use the
High/Low settings extensively, I run the risk of having completely flat areas
in my bump maps, and the easiest way to solve that is to throw yet another map
in the colour slot or put the map in a mix map. This will enable you to get nice
detail pretty quick, but you also get a fairly deep material tree. That's why
the canyon wall bump map might seem a little chaotic at first, but there really
is some thought behind it all. Honest. See for yourselves!
•
Hop
on back to the first mix map we put there which I named "canyon wall and
mud bump". In the first slot we now have the mud bump, and in the second
slot we put a mix map (surprise!). Name this one "canyon
wall bump". In the first slot, we will put yet another mix map named
"sediment and wall bump" where we
will mix that lovely Gradient Ramp from the Diffuse map and the rest of the bump
maps.
•
In
slot two, put a copy of the Gradient Ramp map, the one from the diffuse map, named
"sediment lines".
Here's
another little gotcha. You can just instance it, and it would work fine, but if
you want to give have some extra lines in the bump map, you will get extra lines
in the diffuse map which might or might not be needed. What I did was just copy
the sediment line map, then convert it to greyscale by hand. It's pretty tedious,
but it gives you a fair representation of how it will look, and you can always
add more lines without worrying about the diffuse map. It's up to you how you
want to do it. Here's a side by side (or rather, above/below?) comparison of the
two different gradient ramps.
As
you can tell, the lower one will give a more detailed bumpmap, with a little more
contrast. Now, if you had instanced the diffuse map, the would probably have some
bright lines that would stand out. In order to fix that, you'd have to play with
an Output map, or maybe the RGB Multiply map. Check out the rollover picture below,
it shows the difference.
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Back
to the bump map creating. Now that you've finished fiddling with the Gradient
Ramp, it's time to get started with the rocky bump itself.
•
Go
back up to "sediment and wall bump mix" and slap a Mix map in slot 1
called "wall bump". Put an Output map
in the first slot, name it "small bump
strength control". This is to control the effect it will have on the
end result. Sticking in an output map here and there lets you fine tune the bump
map features, which is good. Control is always good.
•
Once
again, put a Mix map in the Output map and name it "large and small mix"
Slot one will use an Electric Map called "smaller
rocky bump".
•
Put
a Noise map named "flat area fix" in the
black colour slot of the Electric map. This will ensure that no black areas will
be perfectly flat.
Since
I have tweaked the High/Low settings on "smaller rocky bump", I have
rather large completely black areas. The "flat area fix" will deal with
those, and together with ther other layered bump maps, create a nice and rich
surface.
•
Go
back up a few levels to the "large and small mix" Mix map and put an
Electric map in slot two. Name it larger rocky
bump".
•
To
finish of this Mix map, put a Noise map in the mix amount slot, name it "general
noise".
•
There's
only two Noise maps left to apply. Go back up to the "wall bump" Mix
map, where you have the "small bump strength control" in slot one. In
slot two, put a Noise map, named "subtle detail".
•
Now
for the last Noise map. Go up to "canyon wall bump" and put a Noise
map in slot two. Name it "minimal noise".
This one will add a fine bump on top of everything. With the mix amount spinner
you can control how much it will show, and I recommend a low value (less than
20) since it's supposed to be a subtle effect.
And
now you're finally done with the bump map. Yay! That wasn't so bad was it?
