Null material vs. Clip/alpha map

[Soup]

While looking over SkIndigo, I noticed there was no null material, but there was a clip-map attribute for each of the material types.
I was wondering if anyone used the null material for anything other than a clip-map attribute would do?
Say, instead of blending with a null map for opacity/transparency just use the constant value of a clip-map to do the same. Same with a texture as the clip/alpha.
Thoughts?

[PureSpider]

Would be so much more convenient to use...
Are you talking about an exporter feature or an Indigo change here?

[Zom-B]

in Cindigo for example the whole usage of the null_material is done behind the curtains.

if you want to make a object (non specular related) transparent, simply check the blend box and set a % value.
if you want to clipmap a material with a BW texture, simply check blend and choose the clipmap texture... done!

I'm really thankful for this simplified integration

[CTZn]

I agree it's a good idea to do this at the exporter level, it's safer since all apps do not handle transparency the same way.

[Soup]

in Cindigo for example the whole usage of the null_material is done behind the curtains.

if you want to make a object (non specular related) transparent, simply check the blend box and set a % value.
if you want to clipmap a material with a BW texture, simply check blend and choose the clipmap texture... done!

I'm really thankful for this simplified integration

I didn't know that
I think that's not such a bad idea, but perhaps would have to be a different workflow for other exporters, using 'blend' as opacity may go over other 3d package users' heads.

@purespider: Most definitely, all under the hood of the exporter.

So if the null material was taken out, and replaced with this transparency tool, would anybody miss it? The manual says it's only good for problem solving.