Daily Builds 1.0 - 1.4

[pokoy]

About CoronaLayeredMtl:
Currently, the Amount is only working when not using maps. When I want to tune down the effect of the layer AND also use a mask, it's not doing anything. The Amount should imho work as an absolute multiplier for both.

And btw, I also would appreciate a checkbox for the mask slot. I know, we had these discussions over and over but still, temporarily disabling maps sucks this way - and I do it pretty often.

Yes, checkboxes are... useful. They don't confuse anyone, they are actually needed when you need to render variations. It really sucks if you have to delete a map and put it somewhere in the matedit only because you need a quick change. I hope checkboxes will get the love they deserve in Corona one day.

To take it even further (I know it's not going to happen...) a checkbox AND an amount spinner would be useful for both slots.

[Juraj]

Not even checkbox again ?

I can again agree with Pokoy on amount spinner as well, as it's extremely useful fine-tunning for those who don't work Slate for most shaders as I can keep it simple and don't dive into hierarchy but anyway, that can be lived without.
But not checkbox.

What is strange to me is the argument of this being somehow confusing, when it perfectly exists in basic CoronaMtl (where we copied the useful parts 1:1 from other renderers). Both checkbox and spinner. But suddenly it becomes confusing elsewhere ?
This is far too much re-imagining against convenience.

[johan belmans]

Displacement DB 07/08

awesome!

With Corona 1.2 and 1.2.1 I had black splotches. Now they are gone and I can benefit of the reduce Ram consumption. Whoopwhoop

[Ondra]

Next hourly build will feature vector displacement

[pokoy]

Not even checkbox again ?

I can again agree with Pokoy on amount spinner as well, as it's extremely useful fine-tunning for those who don't work Slate for most shaders as I can keep it simple and don't dive into hierarchy but anyway, that can be lived without.
But not checkbox.

What is strange to me is the argument of this being somehow confusing, when it perfectly exists in basic CoronaMtl (where we copied the useful parts 1:1 from other renderers). Both checkbox and spinner. But suddenly it becomes confusing elsewhere ?
This is far too much re-imagining against convenience.

I agree back, just like a 100% reflective mirror.

Really, checkboxes and amount spinners are the fastest and easiest ways to work, quickly make changes, modify map amounts without any deep nest acrobatics and they allow you to see everything in one place at a glance, in both old school and new workflows.

[Ludvik Koutny]

We will do some changes to LayeredMTL. Amount spinners will now work both independently, and as a multiplier for Material mask. So amount spinner will be similar to level in material. If the mask slot is empty, then it's identical to mask being completely white, and amount will be multiplier of the material layer. If the mask is present, amount spinner will define it's strength.

But we do not want to have jungle of checkboxes in there, so there will be only one checkbox per material layer. Now the question is what should this checkbox do. Should it toggle layer mask, or should it toggle entire layer? So it the checkbox is OFF, will it disable material mask and keep the material there, or will it make LayeredMTL ignore the entire material slot?

I personally think checkbox should toggle the entire material so that you don't need to unplug material manually everytime.

[pokoy]

If we're going to have two amount spinners, each for the material and the mask (did I understand this correctly?), the checkbox should work on the whole material layer, we can still disable the mask by setting its amount to zero.

[Ludvik Koutny]

Nope, only one spinner of course. Currently the spinner controls opacity of a layer, and if you plug in a mask, spinner will become frozen. After change, spinner will still work the same way if no mask map is present, but once you plug in mask map, spinner will remain active and will act as a multiplier value for the mask map.

[Juraj]

I personally think checkbox should toggle the entire material so that you don't need to unplug material manually everytime.

Agree here.

[racoonart]

If we have a spinner for amount and a spinner for the mask, we probably don't need another checkbox (set either of them to 0.0 and you got your off states). That's also how it works with VrayBlend btw. You can do everything and just have 2 ui elements.

I personally find the whole discussion about checkboxes yes/no pretty exhausting.
IF there is something I regularly turn on and off and it just needs a handful of pixels for a checkbox then why not. No one argues about having checkboxes on map slots in CoronaMtls even though you could also simply set the amount to 0 . If it takes 10 clicks more, kills the map/forces people to make "temporary" backups somewhere and annoys everyone considerably then I don't understand why something missing should be better than a simple switch that probably confuses a bunch of drunken pandas.
Simplicity is fine, but it shouldn't make things more annoying.

[pokoy]

Nope, only one spinner of course. Currently the spinner controls opacity of a layer, and if you plug in a mask, spinner will become frozen. After change, spinner will still work the same way if no mask map is present, but once you plug in mask map, spinner will remain active and will act as a multiplier value for the mask map.

I see. So there's no way to have the spinner control the opacity of the whole layer once a mask is present? Or does it work as a global layer spinner because it controls the mask...? About checkboxes - do we have them for both the entire layer and the mask? Still unclear to me.
Render me confused... I probably need to see this in front of me to understand it.

[Ludvik Koutny]

If we have a spinner for amount and a spinner for the mask, we probably don't need another checkbox (set either of them to 0.0 and you got your off states). That's also how it works with VrayBlend btw. You can do everything and just have 2 ui elements.

Those would then end up being two spinners doing one same thing in case no mask map is present. I think spinner and a checkbox make most sense. Spinner gradually controls opacity of the material or multiplies the mask, and checkbox toggles the entire material.

But then... why do we need checkbox at all if we can just set amount to 0 to disable material, without need to unplug any of the materials/maps?

[pokoy]

But then... why do we need checkbox at all if we can just set amount to 0 to disable material, without need to unplug any of the materials/maps?

Variations, overrides, alternatvies. I may need to let the amount untouched but quickly override the material to render without that layer. If I set 2 or more layers temporarily to zero, I may never be able to recall what the values were for the final render.

But I agree, it makes no sense to control the same thing in two places. Still a checkbox for both is really useful.

[racoonart]

The same thing with two spinners?
The Amount spinner controls the opacity of the layer, no matter if a mask is applied or not. The spinner for the mask controls the influence of the mask on the layer - set it to 0 and the mask does nothing. Set it to 50 and the mask has a 50% influence on the blend factor. Set it to 38.3287 or 99.9999 but the Amount spinner to 0 and the whole layer is off.
If the Amount spinner is on 50% but the mask spinner is on 0, the mask is simply ignored but it is still blended with 50% opacity on the lower layer.

[Ludvik Koutny]

Ok, currently there are two plausible variants on the table:

First solution - Two spinners
- One spinner for material opacity/amount
- One spinner for mask influence
- If no mask is present in mask slot, mask spinner will become frozen
- If mask is present, mask spinner will blend between mask influence and material amount value

The question here is. If we are blending between mask influence and material amount, do we want to blend between absolute value of the mask (from black to white) and the material amount, OR between mask multiplied by the material amount and the material amount without mask.

Practical example: We have one material layer with material amount set to 50%, and this layer has black and white checkerboard mask:

Option 1: Mask amount 0% will mean material amount is used and mask is ignored. Mask amount of 100% will mean black and white checkerboard mask is used, and on white parts of the mask, our material layer is showing 100%, on black parts, layer is completely transparent

Option 2: Mask amount 0% will mean material amount is used and mask is ignored. Mask amount of 100% will mean black and white checkerboard is multiplied by material amount, so that white parts of the mask show our material 50% opaque, black parts show material. So basically mask will never make layer more opaque than what material amount spinner is set to


Second solution: Spinner and a checkbox
- Spinner will be controlling amount of material layer opacity
- If material layer mask is present, spinner will act as a multiplier of mask map
- Checkbox will simply disable entire material layer, rendering it completely transparent regardless of mask or amount value.