[joaomourao]

I am going to throw some wishes about MXM editor in here just because its Christmas

- "Rating" is dubious in MXM gallery and it should rely on people who can really rate it, not a very democratic approach but... Delete it!
- ...Number of "Downloads" will reveal the users choice after all!
- "Speed" is so important and could be related to benchmark, let's call it "Benchmat" and would say how fast it would get on a standard machine and not my machine, so simple and easy. Sometimes we prefer to go with fast materials and other times with scientifically accurate ones
- "Quality" could measure maps resolution, the way they are used and could substitute "Rating", with NL team voting for it's overall quality. There is no "please vote for me" like in MXM gallery
- Type, Category, Grouping and Naming are so important that should involve how materials are built and named in MXM editor. Make something simple and based on how real materials could be organized... Sorry, going to make a STOP here!

Actually I don't really understand the way you have named the "types" of material inside global properties. What is the idea for it? Based on what materials are really made of? (Metal), based on materials properties? (Opaque, Transparent, Translucent), based on real object materials names? (Hair, Car Paint), based on technical information? (AGS)... Isn't AGS a Transparent one?!? What a mess Should a user know from it's first pick what AGS is and stands for?
Please go with just one strategy or one idea on how to structure it... do not complicate and a tree structure is always better. In a few months we will have loads of materials that need a strong backbone in terms of organization!

Here is a suggestion for a starting point:
Conceptually, first we have "How it stands", then "What is it made of", and finally "How it looks"...
1 - Type could be used for types of material and "How it stands" such as: Transparent, Opaque, Translucent, Emmiter
2 - Then inside each one we could have the Kind of material "What is it made of" such as: Unreal, Wood, Stone, Metal, Concrete, Plastic, Crystal, Liquid, Gaseous, Fabric, Ceramic, Organic and some other ones... I know we could have a wood board with a plastic finish and you would not see the wooden inner core of it. But this is a real world material, so in the future with the "new aging procedural" we will have an old plastic board that will sometimes reveal its wooden inner core! How amazing would it be!
3 - Finishing is about "How it looks" based on color, aging, surface, etc. This should be the name of the material such as: Brushed Aluminium, Red Wax, Shiny White Plastic, Old Oak Floor, Dark Vapor, Brown Bottle Glass etc... We could also "preset" then just like there are a bunch of then with this new MXM editor
This way it should be very easy for begginers/intermediate/advanced users to get started with material creation or pick a preset already done!

- Keywords are something totally different from Type, Kind and Finishing and should be used for the Search feature only. It could include some properties of the MXM like normals, dispersion, displacement, SSS... etc. These keywords should be checkboxes available for us to pick up or not. Other stuff should go to Metadata
- Metadata as I call it, could still be there like we have it in MXM gallery such as: Material ID, Tileable, Represented Scale, Material Details, Comment, etc... Forget about System and Render Time because we will have Benchmat!

This is what I remember that could help MXM gallery and MXM editor...
Cheers!

[Mihai]

What is the idea for it? Based on what materials are really made of? (Metal), based on materials properties? (Opaque, Transparent, Translucent), What a mess

1 - Type could be used for types of material and "How it stands" such as: Transparent, Opaque, Translucent, Emmiter

Seems we are already along the lines of your suggestion no? The "Hair", and "Carpaint" can be seen as specialty types, but the other ones fall within your first categorization.

It's not so easy. From what I've seen on industrial design sites - they prefer the matter itself and want to see Metals, Plastics as a first categorization, and then maybe

• Plastics
  • Opaque
  • Transparent
  • Translucent
• Metals
  • Rough
  • ???
• Textiles
  • ???
  • ???

Then again architects (or better said archviz people) might find it more useful to have a categorization like:

• Wood
  • Floors
  • Veener
  • Facade

[joaomourao]

For me what is crucial is to adopt just one way to do it...
Either plastics/metals then opaque/transparent or the other way around. Both industrial design and architectural have problems if you think about Maxwell Render. As for industrial design, Textiles can be anything because you are separeting then based on their tiling. We can have a tiled metal, or tiled stone, or tiled floor... so many possibilities and what we only need is a procedural like "brick" and some textures to achieve it. A procedural is not a material but a way (as many others) to get there... Tiling is not about the material itself but how it is set, so it has to be on the end of this tree structure. The same goes for some architectural (archviz) materials. A floor can be made of anything, even things you are not prepared for or used to see! The same goes for facade, veeners... etc.

Maxwell is a unique renderer and we have to think a bit outside the box. It is not for architects or designers only, it is for people that want to simulate reality and the reality of fantasy! With this in mind it is all about materials and light and not about professions and market areas...

I suggested first opaque/transparent because you have done it with MXM editor v3. And as for tree folder structure, normally you get fewer sample in the beguining and as you go on you get more samples until you reach what you want.

As for "Hair" and "Carpaint" just treat then as all other materials organized inside this structure. Stick to the plan!

I could help a bit more if I knew where you are going with this MXM gallery overhaul...
Cheers!