Chaos Libary Vegetation

[Hubl]

Hello,
i refer to the comment on youtube

lc=UgxntHa6arWkRqhxJnJ4AaABAg

I would like to see that the chaos cosmos libary for foliage materials would be created much simpler, as shwon in the training, so that you didnt have to go thru all the values and change them

thanks in advance

Alex

[maru]

Hi, which exact comment do you mean?
Also, could you share some specific assets from Cosmos where the material setup is not optimal?

[Hubl]

Hello sorry for the late reply.

the attached file shows a typical tree from chaos cosmos. In the tutorial from the common point they explained how they set up their tree mats much mor simpler.

For example no map in the IOR Value and for the leafs you can use for example only one material instead of three (the bitmap is exactly the same) for color variance you could use corona multimap. and they show that there is no need for front back material. So everything is much easier to control. This would be a huge benefit in our everday work because we redo these steps every time.

thanks in advance

Alex

[James Vella]

Front/Back, Translucency, Bump/Normal and Opacity is standard for vegetation.

I cant see your IOR map from this blurry screenshot however it would probably be the standard 1.5 so you can just ignore it.

Regarding comments like "we redo these steps every time" is very subjective, no software can tailor things exactly how you expect and usually tries to stick to industry standards. If you need things to work exactly how you expect then you can always hire someone for the day to build a material converter script, its not very complicated to automate.

Can you show a comparison of: Your Render/Material setup vs Cosmos Render/Material? I would be interested to see the difference. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

[Hubl]

thanks for the reply, maybe if you watch the course you get my point its really alot faster and easier to control

didnt know it was released yet ;-) sorry

[James Vella]

Are these cosmos assets you are using converted from vray or are they corona native materials?

[Hubl]

cosmos assets. you can have a look at the video from 20 minutes on they explain how they do it :-)

[James Vella]

I watched the video, but you didnt answer my question. Are these converted from vray or native corona materials?

[TomG]

All Cosmos assets come in as native Corona materials. An importer makes Cosmos materials ready for whatever engine is in use. So in one sense they are converted, in another sense they are native :) Thing is, the Cosmos asset is set up to use the realistic, full, more complex material, which makes sense as it could be for close up or distant use. There also has to be a standard, it would be confusing if one Cosmos asset had all the features, but another had some simplified material. Best bet at the moment that I can think of would be to modify an asset to use the simplified material and store that locally in your own library for future re-use.

[Hubl]

I watched the video, but you didnt answer my question. Are these converted from vray or native corona materials?

no these are native corona materials

[Juraj]

Poor OP is completely misunderstood by everyone :- )

What he asks for is simplified economy of the shader for better usability:

1) Front/Back Material ---) Front/Back Map = Single shader with identical result. Not less complex like Tom writes. Identical.
2) Multimaterial ---) Multimap = Same result, actually even more complex because multimap is randomized, whereas multimaterial is finite.

Yes this is because the materials were made in Vray and probably in fashion like Evermotion was done 10 years ago where multi-map was only 3rd party plugin and translucency in Vray was through material type and not property.

In short though, I don't think Cosmos assets are in any way meant to be tweakable. It's for absolutely beginners, it's best to use Connecter and your own stuff.

[James Vella]

Poor OP is completely misunderstood by everyone :- )

Not completely :)

I understand his point, I tend to agree with both @Juraj and @Hubl, its overcomplicated and outdated. Because of overlapping projects I still havent had a chance to use Cosmos so curious if they came from vray, probably so by the looks of it.

If there is some continuity between each vegetation item in the Cosmos library then a script could be made to swap these out with your preferred method (or use Connecter as @Juraj mentioned, or a .mat file). However if they are in the process of being updated to a 'new standard' then that might be a dead end. Good to hear some insight from the Corona team on this as I have seen another thread here previously about Cosmos assets being updated for Corona.

FYI I remember you posting your material setup a few years ago @Juraj for vegetation, similar to this basically. I used it ever since so thanks for that by the way. Ive changed it a little over time but the 'template' was very useful.

[Juraj]

I never even bothered to install Cosmos, I can guarantee it's another ChaosGroup project that was good idea (because it was seen elsewhere) that will never reach any sort of maturity even after 10 years.

Just like ChaosScans, 5 years went by, it has 1600 materials, which after you exclude color variations (pointless since ScanMTL can re-color) and close similarity, and poor tiling, you will end up with only 100 +/- unique and usable materials. 100 materials... after 5 years. Even Autodesk would be proud.

FYI I remember you posting your material setup a few years ago @Juraj for vegetation, similar to this basically. I used it ever since so thanks for that by the way. Ive changed it a little over time but the 'template' was very useful.

I don't know if I should say this, but the incredible guys behind the CommonPoint tutorial linked in this post have also said this to me when I met them in person recently :- ).

[James Vella]

I don't know if I should say this, but the incredible guys behind the CommonPoint tutorial linked in this post have also said this to me when I met them in person recently :- ).

Ha congrats!

Just like ChaosScans, 5 years went by, it has 1600 materials, which after you exclude color variations (pointless since ScanMTL can re-color) and close similarity, and poor tiling, you will end up with only 100 +/- unique and usable materials. 100 materials... after 5 years. Even Autodesk would be proud.

lol in a similar vein I think I used it once and never bothered to reinstall ChaosScans again. Im always curious to take a re-look but as you said I see nothing updated, no progress and there's plenty of other great options around these days.

[TomG]

1) Front/Back Material ---) Front/Back Map = Single shader with identical result. Not less complex like Tom writes. Identical.
2) Multimaterial ---) Multimap = Same result, actually even more complex because multimap is randomized, whereas multimaterial is finite.

This is a nice definition - that might be something that could be handled by our importer, so when laid out like that it is something we can look into. Cheers!