Proximal Shader for C4DtoA

[Jonny_Nielsen1]

question about proximal layer in C4dtoA

I have a landscape with Cloner trees standing on the surface of a terrain, with the standart cinema4d render I can create a shader, with a mask driven surface that only shows up the places where there is a tree standing ( proximal ) - I want to render the project with Arnold but I can't finde a solution for the Proximal shader that I use in the cinema4d shader?

Is it posible to get the c4d proximal layer data into the Arnold material? or create a proximal layer within the Arnold shader?

Best regards Jonny Nielsen

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

There's no direct equivalent of the Proximal shader in Arnold.

It basically calculates the distance from the shading point to the position of each cloned mesh. You can build a graph which does that for an individual object, but not for a Cloner, which is exported as a bunch of objects/instances. I believe it would require a custom shader and some custom export logic.

[gremmler4ARLU]

How would a graph which does a proximal shader for an individual object look?

I am looking for an alternative of the distance shader as it doesn't work proper.

[peter_horvath]

You can read the shading point with a state_vector shader and the position of your object with an object shader. Then get the distance with some math shaders (subtract and length). It's not as good as the distance shader, because it takes the distance from a point not from a surface.

May I ask what's the problem with the distance shader?