color tied to displacement depth?

[rodney71]

is it possible to use a gradient to drive color based on things like:
1. displacement depth
2. distance from a locator

this is something I'm used to doing in Modo but have no idea if that's possible in Octane or C4D.
Context: I'm modelling a virus model and want to shift the color as it moves down the tendrils away from the center/core.

[bepeg4d]

Have you tried with the new Dirt node in v2020.1-RC2-R2?
ciao Beppe

[rodney71]

i haven't used the dirt node yet but unless I'm not understanding it's capabilities correctly I'm guessing it affects color based on changes in surface angles, much like an ambient occlusion shader. this wouldn't have the same flexibility to drive the color along the height of a very long displacement I'm thinking. I'll have to play with that node a bit though.

any other suggestions or features in Octane built for this?

[rodney71]

For instance Modo can achieve something like this quite easily and I can think of a lot of instances where displacement depth would be a useful driver for a color gradient. in this instance emissive intensity is also driven by the same gradient

[bepeg4d]

Hi,
have a look at this solution that uses the Displacement texture to drive a Mix texture node in Diffuse, the Gradient helps to fine tune the position and the contrast:

and here is the solution with Dirt texture node to drive the same Mix texture node:

ciao Beppe

[rodney71]

that gives me some helpful insight. thanks so much for sharing these setups Beppe. I'll definitely play with this