Material/shader editor as part of the gui ?

[sk2k]

Hi,

you stated that the goal of the Indigo team is to "Make Indigo friendlier for new users...". I'm not a new user but more of a hobby artist.

I know that the material creation is currently part of the exporters but a "unified" way for creating/tweaking/adjusting/assigning/saving materials/shaders from within the GUI would be helpful.

I liked the integrated material editor in the Radium renderer (it's dead now?).
Loading the scene and creating/adjusting the materials was a breeze.

I'm a total newbie when it comes to shaders so i'm only using "normal" materials. Some sort of "klick-together-your-own-shader" would be another useful thing for the not so experienced users.

MfG
sk2k

[Sir]

personally i think c4d's material interface is the best ive ever used, double click the material, then turn on whatever properties you want it to be assigned, its all there for you...

try and take a leaf out of their book!

edit

obv if using c4d in the first place this is less relevant, but if designing an inbuilt material editor i think it would be a suitable inspiration

[neo0.]

I agree, this would be nice.

[neepneep]

Something like fryrender swap would be , like, oh my...please do.

[neo0.]

Maybe the ability to edit materials that you created in indigo directly itself? You could create the materials initially in within the familiararity of your chosen app, then directly edit them with a graphical editor in indigo, saving you time and making the revision process much easier (because you wouldn't have to go back to the app.)

Just an idea..

[neo0.]

Just checked out Fy renderer swap.. and I knew real time material previewing was possible!
http://randomcontrol.com/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=88

[fused]

im not sure if you understand what it does...
swap does not render in realtime. i renders a scene and afterwards allows you to change the parameters of one material in the scene. (i heared that) a swap rendering takes up as much time as 3 usual renderings.

and no, realtime unbiased material previews are not possible!


i have to add, that i would love a biased engine that renders previews for indigo, but thats maybe a bit to much to ask for, moreover indigos "philosphy" strictly excludes biased techniques.

[neo0.]

Have you seen radium renderer? The material thumbnails update as you make changes.

I think that philosophy only refers to the final product. With previews, you can make realistic scenes faster, because you are making informed decisions about how you want to change your materials.

[sk2k]

Have you seen radium renderer? The material thumbnails update as you make changes.

That's right but that's not really realtime.

Radium2 (the "play" version) have interactive 6 scene preview modes.

1. solid preview mode (default)
2. lighting preview mode (shows shadows)
3. normal preview mode (shows normals .. white = outside, red = inside)
4. direct lighting QMC preview mode
5. ambient occlusion preview mode
6. path-traced QMC preview mode

If you edit a material you will see a path-traced material preview.

MfG
sk2k

[neo0.]

Well, it's as close to realtime as you will get. I found the path traced preview to be really innovative and useful. It lets you tune your materials to perfection before launching the renderer.

The materials only took like half a minute to render anyhow..

[carbon]

why you need something like fryrender's swap? why x-count of different and useless material preview methods? i've seen maxwell's material editor.. nothing really different then blendigo and some simple scene
i'm rendering indigo since 0.5 and i like it in way it is, robust and the most accurate unbiased engine, i usually do many material tests before i launch final render so i am 99.9% sure how it will look like. as a sideway effect as time pass, you will get your own personal material library of verified materials and, the most important thing.. experience!

just my point, please don't take it personally...

[WytRaven]

Neo here is a little meditation for you:

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things. Not because they are easy but because they are hard." - John F Kennedy

Every morning when you get up I want you to recite this quote....and then apply the paradigm to everything you do.

I am glad you have chosen indigo as your render engine but you must understand that the members of this forum are people. You aren't talking to the "internet" you are talking to us. So far the majority (at least 95%) of all your posts involve people getting upset at your complete lack of initiative and the accompanying forum pollution that is the result.

Yes indigo is not a push-this-button-for-cool-render type application it is instead a try-try-try-get-frustrated-try-ask-for-some-assistance-get-back-to-work-try-try-yay-cool-render type application. Please stop polluting this forum with please-make-this-brainless type requests if for no other reason than to preserve the sanity of those who have done the hard yards and figured out how to use this application successfully. We are not your personal team of consultants.

** edited by benn **

[crojack]

Well said, WytRaven!

[WytRaven]

Thanks Crojack. I don't like playing the "bad guy", despite how it may look, but in this case I think someone has to do it and I'm willing to "take one for the team" and damage my own reputation if it means the end result is neo being transformed into a useful member of this forum.

[benn]

To be honest - we are aiming to make Indigo a 'push this button for a great render' application. That's part of what this beta group is about. Opening up Indigo to people who are great modellers but not hardcore hackers - that seems like a wonderful goal to me.