{"id":114,"date":"2019-10-06T22:27:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T21:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/?p=114"},"modified":"2019-10-06T22:41:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T21:41:09","slug":"shaderballs-renderballs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/?p=114","title":{"rendered":"Shaderballs? Renderballs?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So, these things that you see all over the place in most software showing off whatever texture it’s supposed to represent. A few years ago, there just weren’t any available unless you were lucky. Nowadays, the things are everywhere. The ones I use, and yes I do use more than one, are available free on Artstation<\/a> and Gumroad<\/a>. Just pop over to the site and in the search bar type in Shader ball, and you’ll get a selection – most of which are free, although you will have to sign up for an account in order to download. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, these things are available for different software so you might need to smile sweetly at somebody you know who has the software for the Shaderball you want to use, see if they will export an FBX or OBJ of the thing. Once you have that, you might want to name the various pieces so you can apply textures or shaders to different parts, or whatever. Most of them are already UVMapped by the creator (thankfully) although not all the maps are great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some people out there who will insist that using a shader\/render ball is the only way to work on textures. Well, okay, yes it is easier and more visually immediate – not to mention faster to render (mostly), but quite frankly until you apply that work onto an object you aren’t going to know how it appears. There are some textures I’ve downloaded that look great on the shaderball but s**t when applied. You win some, lose some, have to tweak everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, these things are useful, yes, but you might want to test your creation on a model before you decide it’s “done” if only to check how much tweaking is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just to illustrate the wide variety of these models that are out there I’ve uploaded a few images (link at end of post.) Most of these are available either on Gumroad <\/a>or Artstation<\/a>, although you can find a few with a web search for Free Shaderball. You don’t have to do what I did and grab all of them it’s not necessary. Unless you’re a compulsive collector *cough* but, you might find that different models fit different purposes and want to grab a couple at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Substance shaderball in the following images (end of gallery) is available from the Allegorithmic <\/a>website, in their Substance Share<\/a> section. There’s just the ball, and a shader guy sort of figure, you should be able to figure out how to make just a plain ball with base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of all of these I find I use the Lambert Shaderball most often for a variety of materials, and the RS Shaderball for metals and similar materials. The RS comes with two middle sections, one indented (render) and one smooth. If you’ve looked at the materials <\/a>I’ve been making\/creating\/screwing up you will recognise one of the following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, just to show you what’s out there and to encourage people to go get some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to the gallery page, just so you can see a small selection of the variety out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Render\/Shaderballs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, these things that you see all over the place in most software showing off whatever texture it’s supposed to represent. A few years ago, there just weren’t any available unless you were lucky. Nowadays, the things are everywhere. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-help"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldwolves.co.uk\/pete\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}