Something I noticed in both the Evermotion and Maxwell images is that there are “bubbles” inside the transparent object. These really give a sense of depth and add to the realism especially for varying degrees of transparency and SSS. It may be a good idea to have some of these built into our sample object(s).

I like Gianluca’s simple shapes but I agree that the Evermotion shape with sharper outside corners would be very versatile. Should we look at some more options like this for the reference shape?

Hello, gentlemen

Let us say our subjective opinion that anyway don’t pretend to be absolute true IMO a discussion like “how RT refracted/reflected object should be previewed” makes no sense. Such objects are dramatically depended from concrete scene context and have very few in common with any abstract preview. And it’s how it should be: a transparent refracted object is just a “conductor”. It has almost nothing his own color/influence but it’s highly sensitive to anything around it. We were always “amazed” when a guru showed nice glasses in .. “empty space”. But RT is not a phong to do this So, maybe you can achieve absolute nice oreview look, but it’s still a zero help for this material user.

I agree with Igors that the preview is flawed as an absolute representation, which is why I suggested being able to add a contextual rendering along with the preview rendering.  Every application of the material will appear differently than the preview material, depending on scale, lighting, shape, motion, etc.  And having some measure is still very useful.  Relative to the standard, we will all have some idea of what we might get as a result.

Yon

Igors-
This is also true of the lighting setup. A change in lighting techniques can also greatly alter the rendering of the material. The more “sophisticated” one gets with lighting setups, the more this is true.

The material preview is only for visual reference, but it should be as good/accurate as possible.

Reference scenes may be a good idea. Perhaps even 2 or 3 different scenes with different materials, and lighting setups. But this adds numerous extra rendering samples that would need to be completed. So how much of this is useful ad how much is “too much”?

Blackbox- do you have an idea about what the contextual scene might include?

I was Imagining that the contextual rendering would be a supplemental rendering of what ever the creator felt best represented their intent when making the material.  For example a rendering of a building facade that shows how the glass texture would work in a real scene, as opposed to just on the preview scene.  As Igors pointed out the sample may not work in your application of the material.  Glass might appear one way in the preview scene, and much differently on a glass curtain wall facade.

So the context rendering would be dealers choice.

Yon

Dave,
I think one material preview rendering should do it, and the problem is simply deciding what that image (and project set-up) should be.  For me the Evermotion model comes closest so far as it incorporates so many variables into one design.  When I get a break from my current deadlines I’ll try and make a mock up model as well.

Take care,
Yon

Black Box - 30 March 2007 11:45 AM

I was Imagining that the contextual rendering would be a supplemental rendering of what ever the creator felt best represented their intent when...So the context rendering would be dealers choice.

Yon

That sounds perfectly reasonable.

Black Box - 30 March 2007 11:56 AM

When I get a break from my current deadlines I’ll try and make a mock up model as well.

Thanks for offering to do the extra sample object Yon!

Anyone make any progress recently they would like to share?

Ok, here’s a proof-of-idea test, with the shape I described earlier.  I’m not sure if it worked out quite as I had hoped.  I think more space should be between the two forms.

This shape would allow both the circle and the square to coexist.  So tiles would render as they would on planes and transparents would render as on a sphere. Two different models would not be necessary.

Yon

That’s very interesting Yon.
I like the shape.
I think this is worth exploring further.
What I don’t see is a little bit of specular on the edges. Maybe a little (more) rounding on the sharp corners?
The other thing that I noticed in the other samples (Maxwell, etc.) were “bubbles” inside the shape that were visible when using a transparent material. You may want to add some?

Really nice materials, though.

Gianluca and I are still trying to finalize the grid design. I have an updated version, but nothing final yet.
These are intended to allow the material ball to be larger in the preview.
I have 2 versions of the color “chips” this one is in a spectrum, the other shows separated CMYK and RGB.
I removed the dimension in this design.

What do you think?

Dave,
I like the lay out you have come out with.  It’s very clean and well proportioned. I still think it would be helpful of the grid where a checkerboard.  Transparent objects would reveal their distortion easier.  Especially if the grid squares were twice the size.

When I get a moment I’ll work a bit more on my model, I agree with what you pointed out.

You’ll have to complement EIAS for the textures

Yon

I was thinking about the checkerboard- you mentioned that in an earlier post.
I’ll try some experimentation with it.

(EIAS? Where did that tile texture come from-is it a preset you found on a CD or something?)

It’s called pool01… if you don’t have it on your machine, or CD, I’ll figure out where it came from for you.
Yon

Checkerboard…
What do you think?
Any further suggestions?

Dave,
Thanks for try this out.

I think that checker size is a bit big.  If you look at the evermotion ‘amber’ preview, you can actually see where the black or white tiles pull through. 

Of course in your preview you get a really nice reflection of the checker pattern.  Maybe if it was half as big?  So four checkers per grid unit, as opposes to the single.  I see that the checker pattern could mess with your hue/shade pattern.  I think the way you made the color wheel with a frame could work for the shade pattern, as a bar at the bottom.

Does the color wheel go all the way around?  You had a version where it did, and I thought that was very clever, to see color shift through the material.

Finally, I preferred the oblique view, as opposed to the axial view.  That may amount to nothing more than not favoring Beaux Arts symmetry.  There is of course the chance that repetitive shaders will reveal some weird anomaly in an axial view, that won’t occur at any other angle.  I know, I know, I’ll take it up with my councilor.

Ok, a few other points.

What are your thoughts on using GI in the preview rendering.  Some of my test rendering are taking a long time, and that has to do with transparency and GI.  Does GI gain us anything?

It seems like the master material should be named ‘your material here’ or something to that effect.  I’m sure that read me will make it clear.

I think it’s all looking great, and it’s coming together.

Yon