[dilbert]

I've seen some posts on the newest offer of downloading the entire MXM library in one go, and how this may effect the quality of the overall library. Well, I think there may be some truth to this concern.

It's not that the majority of the materials are "rubbish", it's just that there are dozens and dozens of redundant materials. There is absolutely no need to upload a colored glass, or colored plastic, that has absolutely no unique texture maps or anything applied to the MXM. There are so many materials in the library where people obviously used the material wizard to make, for instance, a standard green colored glass or plastic, with no textures, and then uploaded it with some fancy name to try to pitch it as a unique material.

Bottom line, if it only took you 1 minute to make the material, it probably doesn't need to be uploaded as every other user could probably make the exact same material in the same amount of time. Right now it's not too bad, as the MXM library is relatively new. However, think forward 2-3 years, and there's going to be thousands of redundant materials clogging up an excellent resource. At some point, somebody needs to step in and start reviewing the entire library to see whether all the materials meet the standard of being "unique" enough to be uploaded.

I surf the MXM library practically every day, and I think it is a huge selling factor for Maxwell. However, this could soon backfire if the library spirals out of control with hundreds versions of practically the same material.

[simmsimaging]

Never thought about it before - but it's an excellent point.

b

[Eric Lagman]

I thought about this also. It spikes whenever they do a promotional download the whole library at once thing. It looks like people just hack something together quickly so they can upload one material to get all of them. Like you said this just increases what people have to sift through to get to the quality materials where people put in real time and effort. I personally don't see the point of downloading the whole library at once. I go through it every few days and add ones I like to my favorites. That way if I need something particular come time to render I just look through there, or do a search straight from the mxm site. I suppose you might want to do this if you dont have access to the internet when working with maxwell all the time. Overall though its not a big deal yet, but could be in the future.

[b-kandor]

My opinion is the more the better. It's a breeze to filter the gallery for specific material types - and I like to see options. The quality materials always stand out as bright spots and part of the reason they look so good is that there is a full range of quality present.

[dilbert]

[quote="b-kandor"]My opinion is the more the better. quote]

I totally agree. All I mean is that it would be nice to have a filter for uniqueness, not necessarily quality.

For instance, if I opened up the "Attenuation in blue" glass preset in the material editor, rename it "sexy blue glass", and then upload it to the MXM as a "unique" material called "Sexy blue glass", how have I helped anyone? All I've done is to make a material redundant. Same goes for minor modifications on preset materials, or worse, minor modifications to someone else's MXM that they downloaded.

You said it is a breeze to filter materials by type. Like I said, it might not be too bad right now, but wait until there are 10,000 MXM's on the library, and surfing the MXM library becomes a nightmare to find that really cool material that does warrant real attention. It'll be like when you do a Google search for reference images, and you get 30 search pages back, with 20 images on each page that you have to sift through to find that one cool image that gives you what you need. Very frustrating!

[b-kandor]

hmmm, well, I like chaos I guess

The 'minor' changes may be revolutionary to me - something I never would have thought of - I don't know?

I've modified almost every mxm I've ever downloaded - some with great results - but I've never re-uploaded them only because there is no system there to make contact with the original author.

Yes I agree it will be harder with 10k materials or more - maybe some new management ideas will be required?

Kandor

[dilbert]

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I did some research and in just 5 minutes found a prime example of what I'm getting at:

Check out "light marble" submitted by "nemo" into the architecture MXM library on 15 Jan 2007.

http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/ran ... =1&id=1029

Now check out "Marmo Chiaro" by "monti" that was uploaded on 14 Jun 2007 as a new material.

http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/new ... =1&id=2275

Tell me that this is not THE SAME MATERIAL!!! Now, maybe "monti" happened to find the same texture map, and happened to set up the material the same way, but I'm dubious....

Like I said, I found this in just 5 minutes, but I suspect this is just one example of this throughout the entire library.

[KurtS]

I found this in just 5 minutes, but I suspect this is just one example of this throughout the entire library.

wow - this tells me that it's really easy to find what you are looking for in this gallery!

I don't mind having a gallery with 10.000 materials. Sure it will need some sort of structure, like categories and a better voting system, and there are materials that really should have been deleted - but basically I like the fact that we have this huge resource.

[Mike Scola]

I'm also in favor of having as many materials as possible, however I think the issue is in categorizing them and having a real world reference to them. It doesn't do me any good to have "sexy plastic" in the gallery. I would much rather be able to pick "5% glass filled nylon". I know its a bit geekish, but lets face it, that's how we spec out materials in the real world, so why not follow convention. I dont want to squelch creativity, there are many wonderfull materials that defy categorization, but we also need to be able to quickly find those materials that are as close to production materials as possible.

Is it possible to create a section comprised of actual material lists. What if there was a "King of the hill" section where real life materials lists like actual plastics, metals woods etc. would consist of only the top one to three materials (as judged by the users). As a material becomes higher ranked it would bump out the previously higher ranked materials. Not sure of the details yet but it would be nice to have something that weeds out the stuff thats not close to real life properties.

[KurtS]

What if there was a "King of the hill" section where real life materials lists like actual plastics, metals woods etc. would consist of only the top one to three materials (as judged by the users).

I like this Idea, a selected materials section for each cathegory, and it does not have to be a "democratic" prosess to chose it, I fully trust the A-team/NL-team/certified users

[dilbert]

it does not have to be a "democratic" prosess to chose it, I fully trust the A-team/NL-team/certified users

That's what I'm saying, there needs to be some oversight by the NL Team. When someone uploads a material it should be checked for:

1. Userbility (i.e. does it work when you download it.)
2. Is the material already in the library uploaded by someone else and the new material is an outright copy.
3. Is the material unique in a global sense (i.e. for instance, how many "water" materials does there really need)

I guess it depends on how you like to work. I'd rather select from a small stock of highly engineered materials and make my own modifications on those, than dig through literally thousands of materials with no quality control at all. Just my opinion though I still think it's totally unacceptable to upload someone else's material just to make use of a promotion. But maybe I'm the only one.

[Mihai]

The materials are checked before they are uploaded but checking that a material hasn't been previously uploaded, or that someone isn't just reusing someone else's maps is a difficult thing to do. Sooner or later the materials are spotted and the user removed.

It would not be a good idea limiting what people upload just because "there's enough of that". That's why every user has a favorites section they can add their favorite materials to.

I just mean, lets not get too excited here, some users will abuse unfortunately, but we'll deal with it. If anybody spots a duplicate material, please post and we'll take care of it. In a way all the users help with the maintenance, because it's every Maxwell users resource.

About adding more categories, perhaps it would be more efficient to add a checkbox when uploading a material - that it's a more "technical" material, derived from a real world equivalent. These materials would need to have strict naming rules and description.

[tom]

dilbert, thanks for reporting the abuse. The user is trashed now.