[jep]

Duncan,
I agree some kind of visual representation is good - maybe the classic "shader ball' is not the most desireable but I do think a visual idea of the shaders you're using is very helpful.

[tokiop]

render region to the icon for the material, that's really usefull, because then you're looking what you have already done.

Sounds really ideal, sort of "mini render" per material..

[Duncan]

Duncan,
I agree some kind of visual representation is good - maybe the classic "shader ball' is not the most desireable but I do think a visual idea of the shaders you're using is very helpful.

I find shader balls are good for tweaking materials like falloffs or incident shaders, I can get a good idea of what they will look like rendered.
Same with some procedurals, some times you don't want to assign a material to an object and hit render just to see what a certian procedural is going to look like. Definitely want to see procedurals in the viewport (XSI at the moment doesn't support procedurals in the viewport, I know most 3D apps do )
With the speed of maxwell at the moment it would be a slow test to find out what certian materials will look like.

wrote:
render region to the icon for the material, that's really usefull, because then you're looking what you have already done.


Sounds really ideal, sort of "mini render" per material..

I've played with this in XSI and its annoying to set up everytime.

[Mihai]

Well think about it, what would you rather have when tweaking materials, a small shader ball that doesn't even relate to your scene lighting or the object you want to apply it to, or an interactive render region, which updates automatically as soon as you alter a materials parameter? No doubt for me which one I prefer.

I noticed lots of users who come to XSI are very surprised it doesn't have shader balls. But why use that when you have a completely interactive render region?

Even with procedurals you have to check on your object because of scale issues. It might look good on that little ball, but on your object it might be huge. So what time have you gained?

Shader balls for finding materials faster? What if you have several materials that share the same texture? No time gained there either. Much faster to either have a list of scene materials, or a scene explorer where you can select an object, and then hit a button that picks that objects material.

If it would be at all possible I would much more prefer the Maxwell standalone have an interactive render region than shader balls.

[Takumi Takahashi]

That reminds me of IPR.

[smeggy]

Shader balls, even with many materials and a few very similar is a very quick way to visually nail down where and what materials are what. Just like having toolbar icons for quick reference. They aren't totally necessary but can be very helpful when quickly looking for something.

[cyberjuls]

Xsi can handdle a render region as a material icon for your material library so you can really have a ( of course non interractive) image of your material in situation.

anyone know if we are gonna be able to change emitter material colours in the next release or will that be in the standalone?

Yep just just put custom in the illuminante box

[Duncan]

Mihai,
I like the interactive render region, no doubting that.

Well think about it, what would you rather have when tweaking materials, a small shader ball that doesn't even relate to your scene lighting or the object you want to apply it to, or an interactive render region, which updates automatically as soon as you alter a materials parameter? No doubt for me which one I prefer.

I've pretty much answered this one, I'm not saying your going to have a %100 representation of the material, you just get a good idea, with out assigning materials. I'd like to have both

I noticed lots of users who come to XSI are very surprised it doesn't have shader balls. But why use that when you have a completely interactive render region?

I find the shader ball to be pretty fast, so when I'm making materials in the material editor I'll make a material before applying it to an object, this way I can make lots of materials that aren't assigned to anything yet with different settings. Then I can the assign the materials to the object and compare results and easily go back to the one that I liked.

Even with procedurals you have to check on your object because of scale issues. It might look good on that little ball, but on your object it might be huge. So what time have you gained?

Like I said if you can display the procedural in the viewport you don't have to render.

Shader balls for finding materials faster? What if you have several materials that share the same texture? No time gained there either. Much faster to either have a list of scene materials, or a scene explorer where you can select an object, and then hit a button that picks that objects material.

Sure you can do that if the material is assigned to an object.
Say you have a scene that has 20 odd materials, 5 objects are sharing the same red texture, you open up the scene library, you see 5 red shader balls, you have instantly narrowed it down to 5. Its like traffic lights there red and green not stop and go. Its visually faster.

I guess theres people that like the shaderball and people who don't.

cheers