BerconMaps 2.0 & new Gradient map

[MasterBercon]

Download: http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~jylilamm/BerconMaps.shtml

More information about the Gradient map: http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~jylila...Gradient.shtml

As you can see its aimed to replace Gradient Ramp, Falloff and Particle Age maps. It does everything they do, does it better and offers something more.

Depending on the number of keys and mode you are using, I'd say its 50-100 times faster to use and render than Gradient Ramp. Its also fully Maxscriptable (two examples below).
http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~jylila...pToGradient.ms
http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~jylila...ps/gradient.ms
http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~jylila...radient_15.jpg

If you encounter any bugs or problems please email me or post them here.

- Jerry Ylilammi

[jacksc02]

fantastic!
The particle age map will be very handy.

[zeronove]

wow, MasterBercon

you are my today personal hero!

thanks a lot

a.

[beestee]

That was amazingly fast!

It is great to see updates to these tools.

I acutally put the distortion to use for the first time last week, and with very good results. Maybe I will show it on the image uploads section a little later.

Thank you very much for your efforts!

EDIT: Here is the example. Bercon maps used to achieve the shadows(1 tiles map, 2 distortion maps, 2 noise maps). I used the old max falloff map for the test, but I would like to revisit this soon with the new Bercon falloff. I used another BerconNoise map in the VRayToon to vary the line consistency.

[dbuchhofer]

Nice work Jerry, thanks for sharing it

[re:FORM]

omg. That looks amazing! Thanks for sharing!

[duke2]

Found a Bug I think.

-In any material type, add a composite map in the diffuse texture. In the first slot add a bitmap, it can be anything (or just press cancel so theres no bitmap loaded).

-Add another layer, add bercon gradient. boom!

[duke2]

I have a feature request! Could you add a checkbox next to the position input called "normalize". It would default to on, where it's a value between 0-1, but with it off, it's a value between the gradient range.

Currently i'm using a gradient in distance mode, local Z, and my range is 0-500 (meters), i'd rather work in the gradient in those units (0-500m) than 0-1.

[duke2]

A few more workflow things - could you add a forwards and backwards arrow somewhere around the gradient itself to move forward and back to keys - sometimes it's really hard to select them when they're close to each other. Alternatively, make it so alt+right arrow, alt+left arrow do this.

[MasterBercon]

Yeah it seems creating Gradient in composite map crashes. Workaround is creating it somewhere else and then moving it to composite map which seems to work just fine.

Yeah it shouldn't be impossible to have the gradient keys adapt to range settings.

Shouldn't be too hard to write next/previous key selection either.

I'm quite busy for few weeks now and I probably wont have time to spare to this project right now. I'll get back to developing it in 3-4 weeks.

[jonahhawk]

WHAT??? You don't have time to add our requested features to your free plugin? You'll get to it? What kind of support is that?

Joking.

Thank you very much for the kickass set of maps. You are an asset to the community.

[duke2]

Hah. PS to confirm, it crashes for me on copy/paste or move/paste into composite map as well. Max 2009 64bit, tested with scanline and vray (sp3ish beta).

[kimgar]

the maps are really great!

...but a little warning regarding a gradient with a gradient map in more than one key. a freaky something just destroyed my max file and a lot of backups. the funny part is that you won't notice until you try to reopen the scene, which means that many backups can be destroyed without you knowing, and you're pretty much screwed...

[kimgar]

maxfile with freakyness mentioned above attached, assign gradient to key, save and open - bug?

[Shimakaze]

Wow! I've been looking for a better particle age map forever. Thank you!!!