[Mihai]

I don't think that would be a good way of doing it.....a coating several mm thick? 3 more days.....

[Tyrone Marshall]

I see from the news that the new material editor will support many new features and that's really great, but why it's not "clear"? there are some things still to be redefined or we are in the feature-freeze phase?

My guess is that we're in the 'give it to the users because we could really use some help with debugging' phase. Perhaps that's how NL becomes '100% sure' about functionality.

Nice to be wanted, I guess...

Adehus, the new material system if I understand it is about BSDF curves, a core and unlimited wrapping layers (coatings) that can have a thickness. This is great because most other render systems that can establish a material in this layer like form, do not have a system for thickness to be applied to that same structure.

The new material system gives a physical thickness to each and every coating that extends out from the core BSDF material. That BSDF material can be anything if I understand it - glass, metal, plastic, foam, water, cellophane, air, tomato juice, etc.

What happens from that point as it light penetrates through whatever coating and thickness can determine anything from nothing to full solidity basically SSS.

So in a system, the core determines the main attribute of the material and the coatings determine the secondary attributes and character with density.

The next kicker is that with Maxwell Render, the core BSDF can even be empty volume, i.e. air, while the coatings are visible. I even suspect that the core BSDF could even be a characteristic in some portion of our nonvisible light spectrum that can still influence the coatings. So in a sense this system has a lot of space for extremely experimental, and scientific material creations that are all bound in by actual physical behavior of light.

The system of passes is almost a non issue at this point it just requires a lot more work than is expected. If you understand the concept of the pass, you can almost get Maxwell Render to render just that attribute, i.e. shadow pass, ambient occlusion, depth pass, specular pass, and so on through post-processing, and specific BSDF materials.

[olbo]

@Tyrone

Thanks for this compact explanation, pretty amazing ...


take care
Oleg

[Tyrone Marshall]

Thanks for the in-depth explanation, Tyrone- it helps me immensely in understanding what to expect (I have no experience with BSDF) and gives me much to look forward to. I'm with you up until the last part:

The system of passes is almost a non issue at this point it just requires a lot more work than is expected. If you understand the concept of the pass, you can almost get Maxwell Render to render just that attribute, i.e. shadow pass, ambient occlusion, depth pass, specular pass, and so on through post-processing, and specific BSDF materials.

Do passes here mean thickness/coatings? In what sense are they non issues and how so 'more work?'

I guess I'm not entirely sure how this affects the shadow issues w/glass and sun, but I can at least understand why it's not such a simple thing to answer anymore.

Do not take my answers as the truth as I am only speaking from my opinion. I just hope I am close to being correct.

From maxwell white paper:

Materials: coatings



Coatings are films that cover the surface of the material with a given thickness, so they are over the BSDF layer. These films are so thin (nm) that it interferes with light creating visible effects.

[Kabe]

These coatings look like they are the best thing since sliced bread. If this works well then it's really bending the envelope... there are numerous applications for this, as coatings play a major role in a lot of surfaces in artificial and natural objects.


I really look forward to the new material manager...

Kabe

[Mihai]

I can't stop staring at those spheres.....

[aitraaz]

The next kicker is that with Maxwell Render, the core BSDF can even be empty volume, i.e. air. Which means on the coatings are visible. I even suspect that the core BSDF could even be a characteristic in some portion of our nonvisible light spectrum that can still influence the coatings. So in a sense this system has a lot of space for extremely experimental, and scientific material creations that are all bound in by actual physical behavior of light.

This sounds almost philosophical ...Interesting indeed!

[Tyrone Marshall]

These coatings look like they are the best thing since sliced bread. If this works well then it's really bending the envelope... there are numerous applications for this, as coatings play a major role in a lot of surfaces in artificial and natural objects.


I really look forward to the new material manager...

Kabe

You got that right Kabe, from what I get based on the white paper basically there is no such thing as separate channels for transparency, sss, roughness, bump and so on. I think it is all tied into the material core description and system of coatings. I bet to achieve sophisticated/real SSS, you just need to build up a good sequence of coatings and core base material. Change one coating and make small adjustments to characteristic of the core, and you could have an avalanche of material variations.