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While there is already a similar topic, I'm opening a new one in a better way, and in a more aseptic style.
For whom have not read the other thread Please ignore it.

This is a design suggestion:
Some users (like me) might get disoriented by the NORMAL and ADITIVE modes as they are presented in the UI.

The Blending option (Aditive or Normal) seems to be two diferent ways to combine two layers.
In the Aditive mode, both caracteristics of the given layers, will affect the material no matter the layer order.
On the other hand in the Normal mode these two layers blends together, depending on the Opacity of the upper layer.
The Opacity is a caracteristing of the layer itself, not a caracteristic of the blending mode.

Accordingly to the upper description the Blending mode is acting ON two layers, but the Opacity is acting on each layer.
Grouping both caracteristics in a single object in the UI could lead to confusion.

The suggestion consist in moving the options accordingly to their influence: The Opacity setting could stay included inside each layer window, and the Blending mode could be included ON or IN BETWEEN the two layers on which it has the influence.

Just to make things clearer, I have prepared an example, which is not the only way to do it.
I am sure that there are other and better ways, but this is only one possible design, just to show it in a graphic way.

In the following first image, you can see the UI of the material editor as it is presented today.



In the last image, you can see a possible UI where the Blending mode is in between two layers.
This could give a clearer idea on where is the blending mode acting. Meaning on the two adjacent layers .
Additionally we could get rid of the extra blending mode button of the last layer, that seemed to be useless and perhaps confusing in the first example.

In the following image, you can see a perhaps better variant, that was created trying to use the same type of design components that are being used in the UI up to now. It is good from a design point of view, not to introduce new design components that are not really necesary, so that the UI stays syntetic, therefore clearer.



Ernesto

Kill it before it lays eggs..

From the industry standard layer stacking standpoint, an upper layer is blended with the previous layer using the given blending mode. Here, blending mode is the property of layer itself, that's why.

Thanks for your point of view Tom.
Nevertheles in this case I still see it diferent.
Yours

E

I think your stubbornness to see it differently is because of two misunderstandings:

The Blending option (Aditive or Normal) seems to be two diferent ways to combine two layers.
In the Aditive mode, both caracteristics of the given layers, will affect the material no matter the layer order

.

First, it's not about a relationship between two layers, it's about ALL the layers in the stack. Try this, make a ten layer material and set all of them to additive mode. All of them will have an influence.

Second, the Layer order still matters, even if one Layer in all those additive mode layers is set to Normal blending. Try setting the top one to Normal, will you see any influence of the 9 other layers that are set to Additive?

I think the docs do a pretty good job explaining the difference, and comparing it to how standard layers work in a photo editing application but if you are not familiar with that I'd suggest that as a good starting point. In pretty much ANY application that deals with layers of content you will find an opacity setting in the layer properties and usually a blending mode that tells how this layer is to be blended with ALL layers underneath it.

I understand what you say, Mihai, but try to forget that for a moment to understand it from the newbie user point of view.
For instance, in this material:



You can see the N, that could be switched to A. Those are the Aditive and Normal settings, you could deduct: it seems that it is the way the Material was Blending the components (Emiter and BSDF), and wondered what would be the diference, so tried. you couldn´t see any so, thought that it was not possible to evaluate the diferences in the Material preview, so You prepared a test scene, to understand the diference but still were not able to see the diference, so you kept trying for several days, without any conclusion.

Who would imagine that such an option (which appears twice in the material editor window) would have no effect?
Nobody would imagine that! Instead you think that perhaps you didn´t understood how to use it...

In the manual it says that it blends Layers with other Layers, which menas it is Acting above TWO Layers, and it cannot act inside ONE layer. In other words it is a PROPERTY that is Outside the layer.

How do you see this?
Yours

Ernesto

PS If it has no use, it is bothering. Synthesis is keeping what is usefull, and getting rid of what is not, making things claerer, and fool proof.

You only have ONE layer, so additive/normal wont make any difference, you need TWO layers for any layer blend. BSDF is not a layer... its a bsdf....

eric nixon wrote:You only have ONE layer, so additive/normal wont make any difference, you need TWO layers for any layer blend. BSDF is not a layer... its a bsdf....

Exactly, eric nixon! That is the point!
If it "wont make any diference, and you need two layers for any layer blend" , why we still have the option in a sigle layered material, givig a false choise to the new user?
My answer is that: It happens because the option is in the wrong level. Now it is at the layer lever, but It should be above the Layers level.

Here I am pasting a simple graphic showing the importance of levels of desitions:


Note that in the image at the right we have duplicated the options, therefore one of them should be useless (if not we have a contradiction danger) It is not a coincidence that this is exactly what is happening in the materials UI.
It also happens that if you are already in the right track, what would be the sense of offering an option?
Again it is not a coincidence that if you have a single layered material, it is sensless to offer an option N or A!


Ernesto

No its not confusing to 99.99% of sane people. I think youve got nothing better to do than annoy us. Goodbye.

Blending is a layer attribute because it is a layer attribute. Say you have a layer "Logo". This is a mask layer, which uses normal blending mode, because regardless where it lies in the hierarchy, this layer is always meant to be a decal laying over the top of the layers beneath it. The same applies to a layer that is designed to be blended with other layers. So it should be clear: were blending to be removed from the layer, the layer would then be missing one of its prime attributes. Just because an attribute does not come into play in certain circumstances does not mean that it is any less a part of the object to which it belongs.

Damn Ernesto, with all the time you spend writing these posts, I guess you'll cover every new feature of 2.7, compared to 1.7, sometimes in mid 2016...

So after a very long winded dissertation we arrive at what's really bothering you: that the Layer blending options are available even when there is only one layer. OK! Personally I prefer always having it there from the beginning because it is such a fundamental part of a Layer, and it would probably be more confusing for a newbie if these options suddenly appear when they add a new Layer. It's the same in Photoshop, even if there is only one Layer you still have those options even though they don't do anything.

If we were to state in the manual all the things that seem pretty obvious to someone who's ever worked with the concept of layers (meaning anyone who has touched Photoshop in the last 10 years), that section would have seemed much more complicated than it is, and I can't for the life of me understand how you could "spend days" to understand this simple Stacked Layers workflow. I guess you think we should have added in the manual, in the section about blending different layers together - that you need more than ONE layer to blend layers TOGETHER! I don't think we have ever had anyone endure such hard times understanding this layers workflow...and I have really no clue why you make such a storm in a teacup about it. Maybe because when you see something new, you immediately assume by some strange deductions that this is how it works. When you find out it doesn't - you say it doesn't work like it should...because in your mind you've already decided how/what it is.

Btw, your proposal says to me that you still haven't understood. Your proposal says to the user: one layer is tied only to the layer next to it. This is not true. Again, if you have a ten layer material and all of them are set to additive - the top most layer in that material will affect all layers underneath it.

Mihai wrote: It's the same in Photoshop, even if there is only one Layer you still have those options even though they don't do anything

If I write this is because I think there is a problem there. That many people could be accustomed to the problem, doesn´t means that the problem is inexistent. Anyway if you decided not to change it, I will not write a single word on the subject. If you are dialoging I assume we are listening each other, and that you expect me to explain my viewpoint better.
Regarding what you wrote on Photoshop: I am sorry You are wrong here: in Photoshop you can have several layers but the background has the opacity blocked. Even in the case you remove the background in PS you can have a transparent file, which is not the case of Maxwell Materials.
Finnally I would recomend everybody in the forum to open up the mind so that you could see what other say as a contribution but not as an atack. If someone understands others interventions as atacks he or she will block them with insults and discalifications all the time, as these (http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 15#p363384) and improvement will be impossible.

I wonder if the image of the tracks was clear...
Anyway I gave you the solution to the single layered material case that you mentioned and recognized as not clear, so that you do not have to write a warning in the manual. Perhaps you prefer not to sove it, because everybody knows already? You feel better if you stay blocked? ok I do not want to win, I just wanted to help.

E

Ernesto wrote:Here I am pasting a simple graphic showing the importance of levels of desitions:

que estas tratando de probar aquí? porque no tiene sentido...... y trabajar en su ingles para el patrones de forum por favor. es muy facil, no?

Ernesto wrote: If I write this is because I think there is a problem there. That many people could be accustomed to the problem, doesn´t means that the problem is inexistent.

No, the problem is nonexistent because the problem is nonexistent. I've taken the liberty to emphasize the real source of the problem in your statement. That's what needs to be fixed.

Fwiw... contrary to what Mihai says Photoshop by default indeed works the way Ernesto proposes.
On creation of a new document the background-layer does not offer blending (Adobe mainly has
other intensions to give the Background-Layer this special state, but still).

Only when one starts to shuffle things around and proves that one knows PS a bit one may end up
with a bottom-most layer which has its blending dropdown active (which does not do anything obviously).
But one has to deliberately break the state of the background-layer to get this.

While in my perception nothing major in this case I think it indeed was more clear not to offer blending options
(to grey them out) when not applicable.

Holger