Today I discovered what looked like just a 2.8 bug but is also a 2.79 bug so it’s probably a known issue that won’t be fixed soon. Box projection in image nodes get badly affected by object rotation. Even if your using a position vector or something unrelated to object info like that.
So, to solve this I tried to create my own triplanar mapping node. And I discovered two things:
One, it’s harder than I thought. There should be an easier way to make triplanar mapping like that.
Two, the same problem I’ve mentioned before arises. Do I create 3 texture image nodes mapped differently, and manually change each datablock each time I want another texture? Or do I just make a triplanar vector plugged to one texture node, but which gives me artifacts and won’t allow me to blend the edges of the textures?
In unreal engine they solve this with a different node called texture object that doesn’t take a vector, that can be used as input fo the triplanar function that takes the original vector and normals as separate inputs
Found this cool picture online which gives a good overview of what additional noises could achieve. Would be a great improvement to have them in Blender!
As the “wishlist” of features grows, I’d like to remind Omar, and everyone that sometimes in GSoC student work doesn’t get finished, or is postponed due to classes, or adding too much to the preverbial “to do list”. I’d really hate that to happen for this particular project as Omar has already done great work by improving the vector mapping node and all the vector math options we have now(not to mention the clamp and remap nodes)! Already a lot of new things are available to us.
From here on, if we just got the voronoi and noise node in 4D and that’s it, I’d walk away extremely pleased.
I know we’re all thirsty for more features, but let’s take it easy a bit maybe, shall we? I’d much rather have these features in blender 2.81 than unfinished extra features pushing the master committe to next year or more.
Right, had not thought if that, but that’s a good point. Might want to inform Omar on the conversion part. I know in Jaques luckes animation nodes, there are deg -> rad and rad -> deg nodes.
Adding a Smoothing slider to the White Noise node might also be a handy addition because it could create simple value noise without the performance hit of a full Voronoi noise with a jitter of 0.
I tried using the vector mapping node and decreased the scale but it didn’t enlarge it. So in that first gif I used a math node set to greater than to try and create more black than white but it’s still super fine. Is there anyway to do this currently? If not I wonder if it could be added? After the other items on your list, of course, the white noise node is already very nice as is.
Alright, I will come back to the Vector Math node later.
I see, I am not sure how we should handle this. Would a Convert Angle node does the job?
I think that this would needlessly complicate the node. I wouldn’t mind a separate node though like the one @Charlie added. We probably need to ask Brecht about this.
I would like to keep things simple, white noise should be for white noise and white noise only. I suppose we can look into adding a separate Value Noise.
Just insert a Vector Math Snap node before the white noise and you will get exactly this. Example:
Oh sorry, I gave you the wrong idea. The example image I had was very zoomed in so you could see the individual pixels in the photoshop document. I don’t actual mean the kind of effect that the snap funtion will give. I mean more like the small points of white being larger or smaller.
I entirely agree. Imho there will be a window after gsoc, and i’d see myself switch from cloud to devfund just to get this done and support this work by omar.
@OmarEmaraDev do you have interest in continuing your work on Blender after you’re finished with your studies? I would love to see you continue your work. I and, I’m sure, a lot of other people here would petition to get you added as a full time developer and help round up the funds needed. I’m truly impressed with what you’ve accomplished in such a short time.
Am I interested in contributing to Blender outside of GSoC? Yes, definitely. I have been part of the Blender community for years and I would love to contribute in any way possible, if allowed. I promise you that I will git commit myself to Blender and open source for the next three years, and I don’t need to get paid to do that, I have nothing better to do anyway .
I have a small request, though it may be outside the scope since it’s only tangentially related - could you add a rotation value to the Environment Texture node? Adding a big Mapping node and then a Texture Coordinate node (because mapping doesn’t default to UV or Generated), seems like a bit much for such a common task.
Actually, would it be helpful to add a dropdown for texture coordinate defaults for when nothing is plugged into the Vector input? It wouldn’t take any extra space, would clarify what the default is (sometimes UV, sometimes Generated, and sometimes nothing), and would reduce the complexity of some node networks.