Material previews with arbitrary shapes

[Ondra]

All 3dsmax shapes are now supported in the custom MTL previews, also with rotation

[maru]

Very nice!

[zipper]

wheeee! :) need to test it :)

[Caue Rodrigues]

nice man!

[Vanya]

Looks good )

[olejka2k]

Pretty cool !
Can you load your custom scene in the material preview with lights and custom environment ? Like a custom shaderball with HDRI

[Ondra]

no, just the geometry is supported at the moment

[racoonart]

I really like that you try to support 3dsmax's native tools and features. I hate it when every engine implements their own interface for something that can be shared.

[hglr123]

Thanks mate!

[bilamofo]

Awesome feature!

Also, custom objects with multi mat would be so freaking cool :)

Good job mate!

[lmikkelb]

Cool!

[CHampi22]

Corona is the best!!!

[radiosity]

Cool!

[davemahi]

i have never used anything other than the sphere, but this is good.

I am having a hard time going back to non-corona Mat previews. They are very nice :)

[Ice_Juice]

Keymaster, it's amazing! You are the best!

[Avan]

Guys! How i can see something else except a box or sphere or cylinder? I can rotate them, but other...where?)

[Ondra]

in the 3dsmax options dialog you can load custom scene

[Avan]

Wow! I found. I thought it will be 3dmax primitives...lol. Realy great thing!

[digimas]

need pony primitive in material editor and corona objects...

[maru]

Good idea. We need a parametric primitive like blender's ape and max's teapot. We have mandelbulb but maybe let's set up a contest?

[lacilaci]

parametric pony primitive :D

[Avan]

 I found some models on makerbot`s site. Simply open and resave in .max file. You can use this for primitive ;)

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:25282/#files

[digimas]

I found some models on makerbot`s site. Simply open and resave in .max file. You can use this for primitive ;)

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:25282/#files

It's looks realy cool for tests...opacity, sss, dirt, shadows etc will be better on this model

[Ondra]

neat!

[annetkus]

Hi! It's great, I found how to load custom scene, but it is in Compact material editor mode! How can I rotate and change object in Slate mode?
thank You!

[Ludvik Koutny]

Hi! It's great, I found how to load custom scene, but it is in Compact material editor mode! How can I rotate and change object in Slate mode?
thank You!

You can not... Thanks to Autodesk ;)

[Arttu Koskela]

That's super useful Keymaster! Actually been using only sphere preview all these years.

[maru]

That's super useful Keymaster! Actually been using only sphere preview all these years.

How does this prove custom objects are useful? :)

[Arttu Koskela]

How does this prove custom objects are useful? :)

I don't know about you but I usually create materials in separate scene with a studio lighting setup and for this I tend to use some more complicated object than a sphere to better understand how the light will reflect and refract.
With custom preview I can use the same object for previewing and hopefully need to click render fewer times. :)

A question vaguely related to this thread: Is it possible to adjust the preview scale like you can with the default preview from Compact Material Editor -> Options -> Render Sample Size ?
Doesn't seem to be working with custom MTL preview.

[Volodymyr.Lysak.STEALTH]

Hi guys. I've created a custom shape for material preview. Maybe you will like it and you want to use it as the default preview. I would like to :)
It also could be used to create a library of materials (if it is planned ...)

Comparison:

[cecofuli]

Maybe a BUG?

(*) Double click on the material slot. A new sphere preview is opened.
(*) Try to rotate the preview outside the Material editor --> VEEEERY slow...

[Fibonacci]

Maybe a BUG?

(*) Double click on the material slot. A new sphere preview is opened.
(*) Try to rotate the preview outside the Material editor --> VEEEERY slow...

For me it's not moving.... :(

The problem maybe with the A5...But I can't wait the A6...

[cecofuli]

Only available in the daily

[Alex Abarca]

That's great man! When is version 6 coming out?

[cecofuli]

Only Keymaster can reply  )

[Utroll]

or 'not even KM can...' ?
When all he wants to achieve for a6 is achieved let's say :)

[Ondra]

It works here as expected. Seems like 3dsmax is deliberately not updating the pop-out view as often, but the one in mtl editor is updated in realtime. Mental ray behaves the same way.

[cecofuli]

Ah, ok. so it's a 3ds max "bug". Good to know.

[3dwannab]

Hi all,

You may be aware of Bertrand Benoits mat test scene ball (get it here). Note: It will have to be changed over to Corona scene first.

I've went ahead and uploaded a version here for material previews. Bertrand has gave me permission to upload it here. He actually emailed straight away :] Thanks Bertrand.

I've been using this ball for a while but I've optimised it for corona from the VRay one I had. I also made it so it can support up to 8 multi-sub object materials. You can add more ID's to the ball if you want. I've spilt up the ball into 8 different elements to make it easier to edit the ball if you do. It's better in that if you have only 2 IDs for instance they don't get scatter over smaller areas. (see screenshot)

There's two lights in the scene which illuminate the ball. The loader does not load cameras unfortunately (only lights). I had to rotate the ball by 5deg and reset its x-from to appear at a slight angle.

I hope you guys like it.

One more thing. Does anyone know of a way to change the preview to the custom object inside the slate material editor without having to switch to basic mode to do so? Seems silly now since it's been part of max for a while now. 2010 (I think).

EDIT: 2011 Scene File added

[skelington]

well done !!!