VrayDistance texture - surface borders detection option

[snivlem]

Hi,

I think it would be nice to have an option in the VRayDistance texture to detect and draw from surface borders.

Say for example this, where the red edges are detected and V-Ray could draw from this point towards the inner of the object;



VRayEdges doesn't cut it (well it probably would for the above example, but I'm thinking of uses for like blending of edges of paths, lawns, gardenbeds, roads - more complicated setups etc...)

Currently it's quite cumbersome to add 100's of objects to get it to work especially if there are multiple objects that will use this texture. Let me know if I'm not making sense! I'll be happy to draw up some diagrams.

[vlado]

It's not impossible, but we need to think a bit about it... if you can provide any additional information it will certainly be very helpful.

Best regards,
Vlado

[snivlem]

No worries, here's what I'm thinking. I've done a quick paintover in PS.

I have a road selected here in blue (were obviously looking top down onto the ground in Maya's viewport). Say I assign the VRayDistanceTex to this object.



I turn on the proposed option in VRayDistanceTex for V-Ray to detect surface borders, which I have colored in red:



Then I can type in a distance, say 100 units so V-Ray will now have the "Near Color" which I have done as green, then the rest of the road will be the "Far Color":


So it still works the same way overall, there's just an extra attribute to save time in this particular scenario and I'd imagine, many others. Thanks for looking Vlado.