Render Maps And Filter Editor Tutorials

Some filters are 'flat', without height information, so it's impossible to generate render maps from them. Please check this help section:
https://www.filterforge.com/more/help/...esult.html

Quote
Big Al wrote: some don't explain what each filter does.

We have over 12,000 filters: do you really think we need 12,000 tutorials? You can ask filter-specific questions in the comments to a particular filter.

​Hey BigAl. I've been responsible for a couple tutorials in regards to filterforge. My hope is that I did what I could to explain somethings about it.

One of the key elements of confusion comes from the simple fact that FilterForge can be a very open program which offers an amazing "near-hassle-free" node-programming system. It's so open that I don't think there's a right or wrong on how you define your image. Hence, the logic here with connecting stuff together is that you're free to do whatever you want and it'll most likely work.

I would stress on your end goals creating something than it being "the logic behind" those nodes. It otherwise becomes very tedious and technical which can get pretty discouraging if you're just trying to make stuff.

Remember, in FilterForge what you see is what you get. And while there are some small technical challenges you'll have to overcome, a lot of it is reapplying the knowledge and experience from whatever you do. If you have trouble, please feel free to drop me a private message. I'm more than happy to help with some guidance.

Overall FilterForge has been pretty much the same all these years. Logic-wise the only brain-hurt thing that's happened is when loop and plus components were introduced. So I don't think there's a strict need for updated tutorials.

Let's talk about the flat result. The flat generators / effects basically don't have height information to generate texture maps from. One silly easy way of converting a flat output to a surface output is to just connect whatever you can to generate height and otherwise. This of course is just the messy way of generating bump, normal, whatever other texture map you need but it does work.

The reason why I say it's messy is because we're converting RGB signals to black and white which doesn't exactly convert. It's of course best to construct each element for the ultimate output.