Alternative Luster

The Alternative Luster shader simulates materials whose highlights are larger in one direction than they are in another. It is useful for metals, satin, and velvet materials.

1. U and V Roughness control the spread of the highlight.

Anisotropic

The Anisotropic shader simulates materials whose highlights are larger in one direction than they are in another. It is useful for metals, satin, and velvet materials.

1. U and V Roughness control the spread of the highlight.

Bevel

The Bevel shader can trick the renderer into believing there is a chamfered or beveled edge where there is not.

1. Size controls how far away from the edge the bevel extends.
2. Use Space to control in which coordinates the Size parameter works.
3. The Bevel popup lists several preset bevels or you can select Custom to build your own.
4. Custom Bevel is used to make your own style bevel.
5. Anything Grows safe mode prevents infinite loops, when the Anything Grows modifier is used, by only checking edges of the unmodified mesh. You can safely turn this off if you are not using Bevel in any of the Anything Grows shader selections.
6. Edges determines which types of edges are beveled. Inner edges are creases. Outer edges are ridges. The Degrees slide controls how sharp an edge needs to be before it is considered an inner or outer edge.

Flat

Flat is simply flat shading. The only light it responds to is Ambient and GI illumination. It has no UI parameters.

GI Brightness

GI Brightness controls how much the sub shader's glow contributes to Global Illumination.

GI Shadow Catcher

The GI Shadow Catcher lets you build a shadow catcher that responds to Global Illumination.

1. Max Brightness is should be set to the maximum intensity of the lighting in the scene. Typically you will have to do a test render to see if this value will work. If the shadow catcher is dark in areas where it should be full color, then reduce Max Brightness. If the shadows on the shadow catcher are too small, then increase Max Brightness.
2. Sub Shader Use controls what GI Shadow Catcher does with the sub shader and has three options; Ignore, Tint, and Replace. Ignore will darken the background where there are shadows. Tint will mix in some of the sub shader's color in shadow areas. Replace will replace the background with the sub shader in shadow areas.

Lighting Control

Lighting Control controls the specular and diffuse contribution from individual lights. Select the light on the left and use the Specular, Diffuse, and Shadow Intensity sliders to control the brightness of the specular light, diffuse light, or shadow from the selected light. Use the Synch All Lights to adjust the parameters on all the lights at the same time.

Ambient and GI sliders control the global lighting contributions.

Mask

Mask blocks out a shader with a solid color that is unaffected by lighting.

1. Effect selects either Pass Thru which leave the child shader unaffected, Black, White, or Custom.
2. Use the color button to select the color when Effect is set on Custom.

Procedural Lock

Procedural Lock lets you use procedural or project based shaders and bones or morph targets at the same time. It has no UI parameters.

Shadow Glow

Shadow Glow suppresses the glow channel when illuminated. Areas in bright light will have no glow, areas in shadow will have full glow. 

1. Illumination Required to Block Glow controls how much light is needed before the glow will completely disappear.

Selective Lighting

Selective Lighting lets you control which lights interact with your shader. 

1. Effect selects either Pass Thru which leave the child shader unaffected, Exclude, or Include. Exclude ignores the lights our groups of lights listed in the textbox to the right. Includes only uses the lights or groups of lights listed in the textbox to the right.
2. Allow Ambient controls whether or not Ambient light is used.
3. Allow GI controls whether global illumination light is used.
4. Enter the names of lights or groups in the text box, one per line, to specify lights to be excluded or included based on the Effect selection. Please note the names are case sensitive and must match exactly. Also that Carrara presents a faux scene to the shader in the Texture room so you may not be able to preview changes in the Texture room.

How do I...

Install Shaders Plus?

Extract and copy the files to the extensions or plugins directory.

For Carrara 8.1

On the PC, it is the Carrara8\Extensions directory. If you installed Carrara to the default location, this is C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\Carrara8\Extensions or C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ 3D\Carrara8\Extensions.

On the Mac, OS X.

1. Open the Carrara 8 folder.
2. Ctrl-click on the Carrara application and select Show Package Contents.
3. In the newly opened Finder window, navigate to Contents\MacOS\Extensions.
4. Extract the contents of the ZIP and copy them there.

For Carrara 7.2

On the PC, it is the Carrara 7 Pro\Extensions directory. If you installed Carrara to the default location, this is C:\Program Files\DAZ\Carrara 7 Pro\Extensions.

On the Mac, OS X.

1. Open the Carrara 7 folder.
2. Ctrl-click on the Carrara application and select Show Package Contents.
3. In the newly opened Finder window, navigate to Contents\MacOS\Extensions.
4. Extract the contents of the ZIP and copy them there.

For Carrara 6.2.1

On the PC, it is the Carrara 6 Pro\Extensions directory. If you installed Carrara to the default location, this is C:\Program Files\DAZ\Carrara 6 Pro\Extensions.

On the Mac, OS X.

1. Open the Carrara 6 folder.
2. Ctrl-click on the Carrara application and select Show Package Contents.
3. In the newly opened Finder window, navigate to Contents\MacOS\Extensions.
4. Extract the contents of the ZIP and copy them there.

Enter my serial number?

After purchasing Shaders Plus you will be emailed a serial number. If you open a scene with Shaders Plus or use Shaders Plus in a scene, the Enter Serial Number window will display. Enter your serial number in the field provided and click OK to continue.

Get starting using Shaders Plus?

1. Select File|New.
2. Select Insert|Formula.
3. Switch to the Texture room and at the Multi Channel level, select one of the submenus off of Shaders Plus Lighting Models.

Tips and Tricks

1. Since the Anisotropic shader creates a softer highlight, sometimes you'll need to use the Value (1-10000%) shader in the Highlight channel so you can go over 100%.
2. Shadow Glow is great for space scenes!
3. Alternative Luster is similar to Anisotropic, but doesn't get that traditional Anisotropic look. The differences do allow it to work on some models where the UV set up doesn't let Anisotropic work.

Reviews and 3rd Party Tutorials

Evaluation Mode

Shaders Plus supports an evaluation mode which allows you to try out Shaders Plus before purchasing it. When the Shaders Plus Enter Serial Number window is displayed, just click Cancel to go into evaluation mode. During evaluation mode, Shaders Plus will only work for a limited amount of time before you need to close and restart Carrara.

Release Notes

June 08, 2010

1. Changed where serial numbers are saved to a more modern OS friendly location. This fixes a problem with saving serial numbers on the 64-bit Windows Carrara when UAC is turned on.

September 27, 2009

1. Fixed a problem where Flat and ambient occlusion would not play well together.

Pricing

$24.95 US dollars for a single user license. The single user license includes the right to use the product with up to 5 render nodes using Carrara 5.0 Pro or better. Pricing is also available for a render node site license for use with Grid.

Ordering

Place your order online here using our secure server. Use the same link for PayPal, credit cards by fax or phone, purchase orders, and checks.