Layer Shader Basic ShaderShader Properties
Right-clicking on this parameter and selecting the Show Subchannels option will display all animatable layer parameters in the lower half of the Material Editor. These parameters can be animated individually using keyframe animation.
Bitmaps can be loaded using a file selection dialog.
Here you will find a list of all available shaders and bitmaps loaded in RAM. If you have already copied a shader, simply paste the element using Shader / Paste Channel.
Here you can choose various effects to be applied to the layers. An effect will influence all layers / folders below it in the layer list. The effects are described later in this chapter.
Used to create folders. You can place several shaders into a folder that will affect all sub-folders.
Deletes the selected layer or folder, including its images and shaders.
To toggle the layers and folders on or off, click the eye icons. To the right of the eye icons, you will see the names of the images, shaders or folders. To the right of each name is a small preview image. Click a preview to display its shader parameters in the Material Editor and Attribute Manager.
Each layer has a drop-down list that defines the blend mode for blending with the layers below it. For details on these modes, look up Blend Modes.
A new addition is the Layer Mask mode. This applies a grayscale alpha channel to the first active overlying shader or folder (this layer must be on the same branch of the hierarchy).
To set the layer’s opacity, use the slider or text box next to the blend mode.
To access the context menu, right-click (Windows) or Command-click (macOS) on a shader or shader name. You should be familiar with these commands already. When you right-click (Windows) or Command-click (macOS) on a folder’s name, these new commands and options will appear.
- Invert Image: Creates a negative of the folder.
- Use Alpha: Toggles the alpha channel (if present) on or off.
- Invert Alpha: Creates a negative of the alpha channel.
- Alpha from RGB: This option is made available only if Use Alpha has been activated in the same menu. Alpha from RGB generates an alpha channel using the grayscale values extracted from a given bitmap’s RGB values. If the bitmap in question also contains an alpha channel, it will also be used when Alpha from RGB is active.
The Effect button allows you to add various effects to the layers or folders. Most of these effects are based on Cinema 4D shaders. For example, the Distort effect offers parameters that you will also find in the Distorter shader. For descriptions of these inherited parameters, look up the corresponding shader in the index.
Brightness / Contrast / Gamma, Hue / Saturation / Lightness / Clip Color
Look up Filter shader.
Look up Posterizer shader.
Look up Colorizer shader.
The Low Clamp and High Clamp parameters cut off the color values at the given points.
You have the possibility to rotate shaders or textures and mirror them horizontally or vertically. You can also change the scale and position of the shaders or textures.
This effect is a simplified Distorter shader that works exclusively with noise.
The Time Scale parameter allows you to animate the noise effect. To animate the noise, set the value higher than 0. The higher the value, the faster the noise will change. For further details on the Distort effect, look up Distorter shader.