Muelsfell Multilayer Iray Terrain Shader

Included in this set are four multi-layer shader variants: a four-layer version, a two-layer version, a standalone macro/micro shader, and a developmental rainbow version of the four layer version. These shaders were designed to be used on large, expansive terrain pieces. Without this shader, texturing massive terrain meshes can often be prone to extremely large and memory intensive images that try to cram everything in, or very noticeable repeats due to tiling smaller textures.

The Muelsfell Multilayer Shader lets you stack multiple layers of tileable images, by masking them out with alphas to reduce both noticeable repeats and extreme texture memory usage. The ability to tile layers independently of the masks allows you to tweak as appropriate for close-up or distant renders. Blend completely different textures together to create your perfect terrain.

To unlock the full potential of this set, the user should be familiar with creating greyscale masks in software such as Photoshop or Substance Painter. Any program that can create masks from procedural noise, filters, or baked maps from high resolution sources can be used to create the masks. Sample masks are included for casual users.

You don’t have to be an advanced user to appreciate what this set can offer. Novices can easily make use of the three sample terrains simply by putting them into a scene and rendering away. The included sample terrains are large, multipart models with hideable components such as rocks, grass, and vegetation. While each terrain can fill a scene by itself, they also tile seamlessly along the X and Z axis if you have need of truly mammoth landscapes. With a rocky hill, a desert, and a frozen muddy riverbed, you don’t even have to dip your toes into the shader work to add a lot of value to your renders.

Content creators can take full advantage of what the multilayer shader offers by creating custom masks using software such as Photoshop or Substance Painter and blending tiling textures across any model that has UV maps. Imagine taking ambient occlusion, altitude, and height maps and creating extremely detailed terrain textures. Merchant Resource versions of the shaders are included as well as a guide in pdf format.

A full set of Iray material presets are included. This set only includes Iray material presets and the custom shaders do not work in 3Delight.