Create darker edges on object edge? Almost like VRayDirt or ColorEdge

[Morne]

Hi all

I have various flat objects that curve left and right. Think of a curvy road or letters. At the edges of these flat objects, I want to have the diffuse fade darker. Nothing intersects the objects and each object is standalone. How can I go about doing this? I tried DistanceTex, no success, VRayDirt only seem to work with objects on top of or close to each other or with a decent thickness. VraySoftbox gives more or less what I want, but that only works on perfect straight rectangles.

Any ideas?

Itoosoft's free pluging "ColorEdge" seems to be what I'm looking for. Was just wondering if VRay could do something like this natively?

[joconnell]

Hmm - not sure what exact type of object it is but I'd normally try to build using some kind of method that gives me good mapping coordinates as part of the modelling process if this type of texturing is going to be important. sounds like perhaps you'd be best making the objects with a loft or sweep approach?

[glorybound]

Yes, I get it. I think the distant edge might work, but I haven't tried it.

[Morne]

This is all imported sketchup stuff. I think I'll remodel 1 or 2 of the "main" objects - but even then getting nice UV will be a mission. I tried the color edge plugin and it works to an extend, but the objects is a bit too complicated for it. Might just end up photo-chopping what I want

[voltron7]

will uvw unwrap work in your current situation?

[tooves]

VRay Dirt with inverted normals option ticked?

Hard to help much without further info.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Yes , it is a big hard to help without any example.
VrayDirt / VrayEdgesTex or VrayDistanceTex could help in this situations.

[glorybound]

You would think that this would have an easy solution. I am trying to do exactly what you want. I just tried richscene, but it doesn't seem to do anything for flat surfaces, even though it has a ground setting.

This is all imported sketchup stuff. I think I'll remodel 1 or 2 of the "main" objects - but even then getting nice UV will be a mission. I tried the color edge plugin and it works to an extend, but the objects is a bit too complicated for it. Might just end up photo-chopping what I want

[Morne]

I can't remember what project this was for. However since my original post, there's been some improvements to VRay dirt, maybe try that?

[glorybound]

Actually, I used the edge distance texture and it worked like a charm.

[rikou]

Actually, I used the edge distance texture and it worked like a charm.

What do you mean by "edge distance texture" ?

[glorybound]

http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...ayDistanceTex#

[Mnietek2707]

maybe
http://www.itoosoft.com/freeplugins/coloredge.php (FREE)
OR
http://www.vg2max.spb.ru/gradientedge.htm
??

[rikou]

What do you mean by "edge distance texture" ?

http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...ayDistanceTex#

ok ! I didn't understand you were talking about VrayDistanceTex

[JeremyLondonMDL]

I've found a way to create a gradient from the edges of a flat mesh natively with V-Ray for Cinema 4D using the TexDistance shader, as the iTOO Color Edge plugin looks excellent, but is only available for 3DS Max.

Extrude the outside edges of the mesh downwards and split them into a separate object, invert the normals if required so the 'outside' faces point inwards towards the centre of the original mesh, and select the extruded edge object in the TexDistance shader's Object picker window. The edge object has to be 'visible' in the object manager for the gradient to work, so if you want to hide it from the render, add a VrayCompositing tag to the edge object and un-tick everything in the Comp Properties tab, or set Object visibility to 0.

If your original mesh has complex curved edges, you might find that in some places the edge gradient gets a bit glitchy and shows the distance shader's Inside tex instead of the Near tex. To resolve this just set them both to have the same colour/shader.

I assume the same or similar process would work in other 3D programs.