Author Topic: Material Editor Suggestions  (Read 79952 times)

2016-02-04, 15:59:23
Reply #15

jKLman

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how about building a corona own material API or web dialog to act like Sketchup material with the basic corona material preset with texture support and then develop it into a full-blown material editor.

I know Sketchup API is limited in certain things but programmers has the way to create a workaround.

Well, node editing is not even supported in Sketchup API unless someone create workaround using C++/C. Not sure if node editing is even possible in ruby using web dialog or the only way to do it is inside the rendering engine itself and only linked to sketchup.
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2016-02-04, 16:24:10
Reply #16

jiminy-billy-bob

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how about building a corona own material API or web dialog to act like Sketchup material with the basic corona material preset with texture support and then develop it into a full-blown material editor.
Well, they have to build it from scratch anyway, so they're better off creating something that makes more sens for Corona.

We can do whatever we want in both webdialogs and C++ dialogs.
The issue is not "is it possible", but "how long would it take to do it?". There are frameworks for Qt, or in JS, or whatever, but it would still take a lot of time.

2016-02-04, 17:21:13
Reply #17

jKLman

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Definitely, node editor is good to have aside from basic material editor and
preset materials that can be easily applied. Drag and drop material assigning to object

Right click contextual shortcuts
Interactive preview with thumbnail of in model materials ala 3dsmax 24 slots
Import export of material library/ saving and loading

Drag and drop/ copy and paste of texture mapping 

Material randomizer/ color randomizer
Material layering

Good to have all of this👍


"Jack of all trade, but messing up with 3D"
Blender 2.78 Corona Standalone 1.5 / 2016-10-24 Alpha
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2016-02-05, 14:28:47
Reply #18

spadestick

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There is an inherent issue which I hope the team will pick up and address. It seems Corona doesn't handle the texture correct when you scale the texture with the pins instead of typing the correct measurements in the SU material editor. Allowing scaling within the texture is a crucial way of working in Sketchup and I think this is a very important issue to address, hopefully this can be possible without having to use numbers as trial and error to align and position textures correctly on faces and objects.

2016-02-06, 16:13:59
Reply #19

jKLman

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I have noticed  also that texture scaling is happening when material texture is applied to a grouped object rather than individual faces before grouping.

Try this...
1. texture applied on a single face in an object before grouping is rendered correctly.
2. texture applied in grouped faces to form an object when rendered scales down or become tiled texture, texture rendered incorrectly.
3. texture applied on faces, then group into an object renders correctly.

"Jack of all trade, but messing up with 3D"
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2016-02-07, 17:16:48
Reply #20

jKLman

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At the moment, when you render sketchup scene, corona render it with a default diffuse materials
using assigned color and texture native of sketchup.

I am just thinking that, we can build material editor from here.
Corona will detect native sketchup materials applied then auto-convert these materials
into corona own material, 1) diffuse material, 2) glass material, 3) glossy material etc etc...
Then corona will generate converted materials and open in corona material editor so we tweak
some properties to our liking then render.

I am thinking also of a drag and drop approach to material using preset but during dropping preset material will be applied but keeping the existing texture applied and not re doing or setting up again the whole process of texture mapping and lingking.
"Jack of all trade, but messing up with 3D"
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2016-02-08, 16:07:05
Reply #21

jKLman

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Corona can have sketchup material preset similar to the snapshot I have attached
that can be applied to sketchup object, then these will be detected by the render engine
and render the scene based on these materials.

These Corona materials can have the Corona supported material properties that can be edited in a corona
material editor either by basic or advance node editing and can be saved back to corona materials or save as user materials.

Then these will become the users preferred materials when using Corona as renderer.

Just a thought and idea. Hope this make sense. ;)

"Jack of all trade, but messing up with 3D"
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2016-02-10, 09:39:56
Reply #22

spadestick

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Oh.. big time request. Not sure about how it works in MAX, but could you set limits to everything... one of the ways is to work in percentages.

0-100%

because many times, we are not aware what the limit is and place some random figure like 1000 and find out it either doesnt do anything or places the rendering into an infinite render loop, like months.

like BUMP for instance should be in mm or inches and should have a limit.

This will reduce trial and error!

2016-02-10, 11:48:42
Reply #23

jKLman

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It would help if range or limit is in greyed out text or label in the input boxes, or hovering tips for spinner or slider.

Or limits just can be seen on the sides opposite in a grey-out color

Or this tips can be just part of presets and can be removed in a customized settings so as
to reduce clutter
"Jack of all trade, but messing up with 3D"
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2016-02-24, 16:00:51
Reply #24

marqueso

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A node editor would be amazing!

or a editor similar to Keyshot would be nice. I think it could work similarly since both work to maximize a "progressive" render situation.




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2016-03-10, 19:46:40
Reply #25

Ang

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Hi, I'm starting to test the material editor. It would be interesting to include a tool to select the material and find it easily. In the picture attached it is that even simple there are many materials in the scene. Cheers
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2016-03-11, 06:36:56
Reply #26

jKLman

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+1 corona own material picker and dropper
"Jack of all trade, but messing up with 3D"
Blender 2.78 Corona Standalone 1.5 / 2016-10-24 Alpha
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2016-03-11, 08:47:25
Reply #27

Ryuu

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Yeah, this is planned as soon as I figure out how to do that and have time to implement it. I'd like to do both material picking and painting (the current "Apply to Selected" method is very slow). In the meantime there is a "workaround" where you can select an object in scene and click on the "Selected" tab in the top-left corner of the material editor. This will display only the materials applied on selected object(s).

Btw, does anyone have any tips how to handle texture previews in UI? I kinda don't like the 3DS Max way where if you apply a map, you just have an "M" next to the property and have to click it (which brings you to another menu) to actually see how this map looks like. On the other hand if I were to continue with my current scheme, all the texture previews would take a lot of space. I'd like to reach some middle ground, where you can easily see the applied textures without cluttering the UI too much.

2016-03-11, 09:30:37
Reply #28

jiminy-billy-bob

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Yeah, this is planned as soon as I figure out how to do that and have time to implement it.
You can also sync your material editor with Sketchup's editor, using a MaterialsObserver.

Btw, does anyone have any tips how to handle texture previews in UI? I kinda don't like the 3DS Max way where if you apply a map, you just have an "M" next to the property and have to click it (which brings you to another menu) to actually see how this map looks like. On the other hand if I were to continue with my current scheme, all the texture previews would take a lot of space. I'd like to reach some middle ground, where you can easily see the applied textures without cluttering the UI too much.
A drop-down? You have some way of seeing a map is applied (bold?) and when you click on it, the map appears.
Kinda like what I do in Skatter's UI to display more options.

2016-03-11, 09:40:41
Reply #29

Ryuu

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I'm already using the observer to sync material changes made from SketchUp editor, but I completely missed that it also gives me the currently selected material. That's great, thanks for the tips.