Useful $ commands

[Fluid Script Studios]

So what $ commands do you guys find useful? If you could post yours, i'd love to learn some more interesting $commands from you users out there.

Here are probably the only 3 that i know of and use most often.

(Vector3) $color
Changes the color of certain materials using a set of 3 RGB values. I've used this to change the hair colors of models, makes them more unique!

(String) $basetexture
Let's you put in your own texture for a material on your model. I've mainly used this to make gorgeous sky cards. useful for everything having to do with a background.

(Vector3) $envmaptint
I learned this one recently from folks here on the workshop, but it's useful for getting rid of the strange metallic glowy matte that are on some models, and makes them more...realistic so to speak.

-----Useful $commands from users!-----

(Float) $phongboost + $phongexponent
Phongboost and phongexponent boosts the wet-like texture of a material. Can be used to create sweaty skin.

(String) $basealphaenvmapmask
Allows you to separate the phongmap from the envmap (phong is the wet texture-y stuff, while the env map is the metallic reflective material-ish stuff) Not sure why this is useful but hey, i'm sure it's useful for something!

(Needs clarification) $displacementmap _rt_camera + $displacementwrinkle 0
Although it needs clarification, according to episoder it creates shockwaves! sounds pretty cool.

(String) $iris
This gem allows you to change the material of the eye of your model. You can get creative, or use some eye textures from the workshop with this!

(String) $bumpmap
If you are using a basetexture override, and happen to have a corresponding bumpmap (the little black and white version of your texture, which gets translated into depth information) add this command to accompany your material and give your texture some depth info!

(String) $detail
(Float) $detailscale
(Normal) $detailblendfactor
This is like the more advanced version of $basetexture, which allows you to superimpose one texture over the existing texture. the first one, $detail is the enabler. the 2nd $detailscale allows you to define the scale/size of the texture upon the existing material. the final $detailblendfactor will give you a blend amount for the opacity of the new texture.

[Scoot]

(float)
$phongboost - gives a sort of 'wet' texture
$phongexponent - when used with the above, adds like a sweaty skin shine to the TF2 models. Obviously gotta play around with numbers.

I like the colour and envmaptint ones, will have to try those out!

[episoder]

$basealphaenvmapmask 1
seperates the envmapmask from the phongmask. making it effectively 2.

$phongalbedotint 1
metal colors. used with phongexponenttexture's green channel as intensity.

$selfillum 1
$selfillumtint "[r g b]"
glow and superglow using hdr (1.0+) values.

$selfillummask "texture"
seperate mask for diffuse (basetexture) independant selfillum colors.

$emissiveblendenabled 1
$emissiveblendstrength 1
$emissiveblendbasetexture "texture"
$emissiveblendtexture "texture"
$emissiveblendflowtexture "texture"
$emissiveblendtint "[8 8 8]"
$emissiveblendscrollvector "[.23 .17]"
the holy grail of color ramping effects. :D

[Fluid Script Studios]

Originally posted by episoder:

$basealphaenvmapmask
seperates the envmapmask from the phongmask. making it effectively 2.

$displacementmap _rt_camera
$displacementwrinkle 0
creates shockwaves

$phongalbedotint 1
metal colors

$selfillum 1
$selfillumtint "[r g b]"
glow and superglow using hdr (1.0+) values

$selfillummask
seperate mask for diffuse independant selfillum

$emissiveblendenabled 1
$emissiveblendstrength 1
$emissiveblendbasetexture
$emissiveblendtexture
$emissiveblendflowtexture
$emissiveblendtint "[8 8 8]"
$emissiveblendscrollvector "[.23 .17]"
the holy grail of color ramping effects :D

Thanks. Mind giving a brief explanation for each one? or how to use these? Are they strings, floats, vectors?

Originally posted by Scout:

(float)
$phongboost - gives a sort of 'wet' texture
$phongexponent - when used with the above, adds like a sweaty skin shine to the TF2 models. Obviously gotta play around with numbers.

I like the colour and envmaptint ones, will have to try those out!

I'll add these to original post so others can see.

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

(Vector3) $color

I'd generally use $color2 instead, as this is the standard for model materials, so will serve as an override to any default in the file.

~~~~~

Any mention of $basetexture really needs to be accompanied by $bumpmap (for overriding normal maps, assuming you can make your own) and $iris (similar to basetexture, but for overriding the EyeRefract shader).

$ambientocclusion <float> can be used to adjust the level of ambient occlusion on specific materials (it can be set anywhere between 0 and 1). While generally you would do this in the specific VMTs, there are times it's useful to adjust for a specific scene.

These ones require some set-up in the VMTs (as they need to exist in order to be overridden), but they are potentially very powerful:
$detail <string>
$detailscale <float>
$detailblendfactor <float>

The effects of this can be seen here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1210519883
The heart pattern on the clothes is a secondary "detail" texture layered over the basic white texture, allowing me to use one folder of seamless patterns across any number of clothing items - rather than needing to make a new texture for every individual piece of clothing I want to use it on, I can just make one texture and immediately use it on everything I've got set up to use detail textures (which could be T-shirts, tank-tops, underwear, duvets, curtains, carpets, wallpaper, etc, etc).

These aren't the only parameters I use in material overrides, but they are probably the most generally useful (things like $selfillum parameters are more specific in what I use them for).

[Fluid Script Studios]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

(Vector3) $color

~~~~~

$detail <string>
$detailscale <float>
$detailblendfactor <float>

The effects of this can be seen here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1210519883
The heart pattern on the clothes is a secondary "detail" texture layered over the basic white texture, allowing me to use one folder of seamless patterns across any number of clothing items - rather than needing to make a new texture for every individual piece of clothing I want to use it on, I can just make one texture and immediately use it on everything I've got set up to use detail textures (which could be T-shirts, tank-tops, underwear, duvets, curtains, carpets, wallpaper, etc, etc).

So just to be clear, $detail lets you superimpose a texture on top of something to basically combine the two together (the new texture with the original texture)?

$detail scale let's you increase or decrease the size of the superimposed texture?

and $detailblendfactor is the amount of oppacity between the new texture and the original? Literally the amount of blend right?

[Zappy]

I like the $SubD command, but it does require the model to either be made with support for it in mind or be tweaked in order to support it. (In very rare cases, it might also accidentally support it, but that's really not something to rely on.) But when it works, it can increase 4-gons to be up to 256x as smooth. n-gons with more than 4 sides might even benefit more than 4-gons, but I'm not quite sure about that.

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

So just to be clear <snip>

Pretty much. The exact result depends on the $detailblendmode, but said parameter cannot be changed via overrides. (I used mode 0 here. Would have liked have tried mode 8, but I couldn't get it to work, so that may be a newer addition to Source).

It's normally intended to fake additional detail in textures while keeping the file size small - one example would be tiling a "rough" texture over the top of a brick texture so that the main texture does the work from a distance, with the detail texture stopping it looking completely blurry if you get too close.

[episoder]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

Thanks. Mind giving a brief explanation for each one? or how to use these? Are they strings, floats, vectors?

i edit. pretty selfexplaining stuff.

that's emissiveblend. can be used on a lot of things. transparent and whatever. awesome sauce.
https://youtu.be/7psFOD3smHc
maybe i should do a $flesh effect transition too. that's the other sauce.

[Fluid Script Studios]

Originally posted by episoder:

$displacementmap _rt_camera
$displacementwrinkle 0
creates shockwaves. needs highly subdivided meshes and proper uv unwraps. the mesh subdivisions and size of the rendertarget should be equal for 1:1 texel position to uv and vertex coverage. the rendertarget is not interpolated when used as a vertextexture. lil bummer.

https://youtu.be/PnkT6C9Ose8?t=40s

This is what i took away from this. ._.

[episoder]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

This is what i took away from this. ._.

well... it's not an effect that may be needed often. it's as useful as $subd. heavily modelling constrained. so... i may just snip it? mmh. yep. lol

[ZergSquad]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

(Float) $phongboost + $phongexponent
Phongboost and phongexponent boosts the wet-like texture of a material. Can be used to create sweaty skin.

I found for myself that boost20 exp80 is the best for most of the models )

Originally posted by Zappy:

I like the $SubD command, but it does require the model to either be made with support for it in mind or be tweaked in order to support it. (In very rare cases, it might also accidentally support it, but that's really not something to rely on.) But when it works, it can increase 4-gons to be up to 256x as smooth. n-gons with more than 4 sides might even benefit more than 4-gons, but I'm not quite sure about that.

yeah but most of the models are triangles, and remodeling it to quads would be epic pain :)

[green]

Spicy necro, but a cool thread nonetheless.

[Mario]

I gotta find a way to get a good metallic texture to work somehow

[anonymousgamer]

Nice necro.

By metallic, do you mean metalness?

[Mario]

Originally posted by anonymousgamer:

Nice necro.

By metallic, do you mean metalness?

Something like that. I am using a Mario model that has very smooth buttons, and I'm trying to make them have a metal-like texture so they'll be more realistic. I know the solution to my problem is probably super easy but I can't figure out what to do lol