[Mihai]

Besides which I don't see anybody complaining but you

Wow, I'm all alone against the untouchable artiste. You started being a complete jerk in this thread when I had the absolute nerve to question your approach, I should just have said from the start I think yours is a "bullshit" approach and instead of concentrating on making a good material library you concentrate on making a lot of useless work for yourself - so you earn that collection. I find it totally ridiculous that you go into that refl 90 should be 12 points brighter crap....this much precision (I feel dizzy)....and then go on to setup each and every one of them the same - moreoever I think you misinterpreted the spec vs glossy "Arroway settings". I look forward to the plastic bricks.

Don't feel persecuted if in the future I still comment on your wisdom and teachings. If you want to continue making these 423 x 18 materials (for completely stupid reasons), may I suggest to take a look at Python and maybe automate this thing. Or ask someone at NL for help on creating it, should take 10 min. Actually the entire collection could be created using Python and a spreadsheet from the holy Arroway settings. That's a system. See? Even though you're a jerk I try to help you continue down this road. Enjoy that collection.

[Half Life]

Actually I already did ask people at Next Limit weeks ago for help and they are already working on it -- you (as usual) are late the party and out of touch.

It was not my intention to do 18 sets -- I was asked by Arroway to make one for each size (which I personally think is redundant, but whatever) and I was asked by users in this thread to make a RealScale version (which was the actual point of the thread).

I was content with simply doing one set for each along with a set for SketchUp and calling it a day, however this is what I get for being "accommodating"... and here you are trying to pile even more work on me.

The whole thing about my settings was never the issue(until you made it one), another user simply asked me my approach for an automation project they were working on and you took the results completely out of context.

[David Solito]

Let me have an outside view on this debate if you do not mind?

In my professional career I have met many talented and outstanding technicians. What I learned from these meetings and sharing of knowledge is that the manner is irrelevant, it is mainly the result that matters. Our business obviously leads us to create processes and allow us to implement them more quickly to save time and money. The fénéantise has often that good point is that it allows us to reflect on a process of simplification and optimisationd and give us, among other things, more time for the quality of what is produced.

On this fact, as a customer Arroway textures, I would obviously have a library ready to use to save time on my projects. At the same time, I aim for quality and trusted my eyes and suddenly I could never limit myself to one material ready to use in a render, I would change some parameter according to my light, style and need for the project, that is the benefit of CGI. In fact today no longer picture is presented or sold raw (I do not speak here of an artistic work).

I also think that an experienced user will not only these parameters as is, and yet ... I have not had the opportunity to see the work of Jason entirely. By cons as a beginner, this is an opportunity to see "a way" to work and draw his own conclusions or experimentation. This is not what Tom and others, teaches us occasionally with unanswered questions on this forum? Learn with experimentation.

I also find it's very difficult to judge the quality of its texture as it is not implemented in a scene and I really hard to judge this on a simball or primitive forms. The proposal Mihai made seems interesting to use demo scenes from Arro. Indeed it is probably on the quality of these demo scenes that users are buying these textures.
Less by the work done on the textures themselves especially for a novice user. "Hoaw, these tables are looking terrible. I want the same result for my renders!"

Where I ask myself the same question that Mihai is about values ​​indicate in their PDF. I've never understood the Gloss and Shiness especially if you consider the Maxwell system. Is it well to follow the data? Do you have better results with values ​​from your experience?

Jason do you think it would be possible to have these scenes? I'd be very interested to make my own test and why not discuss it here to enrich our knowledges at all?

I will be also happy to give you a hand if needed in the capacity of my spare time.

[Half Life]

Oh I'm sure the scenes could be had no problem -- but I'm also sure they are 3DS Max files which I would not be able to easily use... my main issue is who is going to spend all this time rendering all those thousands of sample scenes for us to judge, and when does it meet "the standard" of acceptability(whatever that may be)?

I have alot of paying projects to deal with and I had planned to have this done in less than a month -- this has been planned for about the same amount of time so changing course now would be a major hassle for me.

But more than that I remain firmly unconvinced that there is in fact a better "overall" option -- I'm not lying when I said I've already tried every conceivable combination -- I know what these textures can do and I'm sure that the settings I'm using are a good baseline for what the buyer is going to expect when they purchase these textures.

Could the individual textures suit this or that purpose better? I'm sure, but who is the final judge of what the optimal use of any given texture is? At the end of the day I keep coming back the established look of the scenes Arroway uses in its catalogs and website as being the only realistic/logical course for a single MXM set.

Creation by committee is not a good thing (too many compromises) -- it's one of the reasons I work alone (I'm not big on compromising).

Also, it sounds great but you remember the flop we had with the daily MXM tips right -- this community isn't built in that way, and a few of us would end up doing all the work... so I'm just going to keep going in the direction I've already started in. As you say, as a user grows they will begin to change things as they need to anyway.

Best,
Jason.

[David Solito]

Also, it sounds great but you remember the flop we had with the daily MXM tips right -- this community isn't built in that way, and a few of us would end up doing all the work... so I'm just going to keep going in the direction I've already started in. As you say, as a user grows they will begin to change things as they need to anyway.

Ha ha, this would have been the tips of the year. We would have had a couple of years in advances now...

[Mihai]

you (as usual) are late the party and out of touch.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I commented first of all on your "bullshit" automation and this:

before I would use them for anything like this since they cannot have mapped roughness or mapped opacity, they are pretty well useless in all but a few cases

Then, being the sensitive jerk that you are, you attack from all possible angles, including this one above. Out of touch with what dude??? It would be too much work in this case to make a few adjustments to this system to take into account at least categories of materials like wood vs concrete? Instead of taking care of the nails in one of the wood textures (the reason you said you used ND 3) why not do a more appropriate base system for wood, and taking this texture with nails in it as an exception? In fact it shouldn't even use this system because neither the wood or the nails will benefit from it. This system will be automated anyway via Python....then what is this crap:

No, you don't understand what I mean (yet again) -- I have to do 2 versions for the full-rez textures (1 x 1 relative and RealScale tiling) and then another double set of the same for the half-rez textures, and then another double set of the same for the free sample-rez textures.

Then I have to make a copy of each of those for the Mac users since I get reports of the Mac versions I've already put out not finding the textures correctly... and then I have to do the same for the SketchUp plugin.

I expect the whole project to take me about 5-6 weeks total.

Your work is done already...you've created the universal system.

The whole thing about my settings was never the issue(until you made it one)

This IS the issue now. It should have been for you too from the beginning when starting this project and I wished you would have realized that the more you try to make a universal system, the more crappy materials you will spread. At least if you split it up into different categories. I don't know how many render tests you did with different scenes, I don't know if in your mind you were trying to blindly mimick what an arroway render looked like or you used your own judgement etc. If you did, your attitude doesn't show it.

Yeah, I am sensitive to making these materials look good, since they use the best textures, and they'll get a lot of attention. I didn't start shouting at you and rambling, I *suggested* that perhaps the goal should be to create good materials first of all, even if it's not necessary to make all 400+ of them at first. I had two issues with your approach really: ND 3 for the reflective layer, and how you interpreted glossiness in the arroway settings. Your interpretation is that both of them control the amount of reflection, one via changing the brightness of the texture, the other via controlling the layer weight. But what about the roughness? Doesn't glossyness 50%, mean that the Reflective Glossiness parameter in Vray is set to 0.5 (half way rough, 0 being the roughest) and on top of that uses the texture?

Some settings don't make sense to me:
Specular 100%, but glossyness 0%. From your conversion this means a totally diffuse material. Nevermind that 1% additive layer weight. It will do nothing.
Most likely, in Vray these settings won't make a totally diffuse material (I hope not) because it would lose many nice details of the material. There are many settings like this for the concrete collection for example - which means the Maxwell versions will be mostly a diffuse refl0 textured material = crap.

I suggest a spec 15%, glossyness 0%, should be converted to 15% layer weight, and for roughness just use the texture and leave the parameter to 100. When they write glossyness 25%, I guess they mean, use the spec map in the Reflection glossiness param, and set the parameter itself to 0.25, meaning no values in the spec map should be less than 25% glossy (in Vray it's reversed, 0 is the roughest). So use the spec texture in the roughness and limit the parameter to 75% (no value in the map is rougher than that). No need in any instance to actually mess with the brightness/contrast of the maps, they didn't either.

Which one looks more interesting to you? Or better, which one looks more realistic from this viewing angle and lighting condition? Yes, the one on the right has 1% as layer weight, as instructed from your video.

and I was asked by users in this thread to make a RealScale version (which was the actual point of the thread)

So teach and tell them to adjust the tiling with what it says on the Arroway page. It isn't any more complex than that - this info, I'm all for repeating and spreading. No 30 min video necessary.

[Half Life]

Cripes dude will you give it a rest? I don't really want to keep going around and around with you over this -- I've tried to give you numerous "outs" and you refuse to take them... don't make me get nasty.

Obviously reading comprehension is not your strong suit so I'll quote myself from earlier in this same thread:

One thing I forgot to mention in the video -- the wood veneers/floor sets are different in that their specularity should come from a clear-coat finish of some type... so make sure you lower the Nd of the specular layer to between 1.491 (acrylic) and 1.768 (aluminum oxide).

So no the Nd of 3 is not universal(duh!) -- try paying attention instead of making foolish assumptions and you will find I am much easier to get along with.

I'm not going to sit here and go over with you in fine detail all of my reasons, like I said if you don't like my version, make your own... that is the end of this conversation as far as I am concerned. I don't work for you and you have no power over me, and your opinion is mattering less and less to me each time you post.

[Bubbaloo]

I think the point is to make sure Maxwell is represented well through these materials that will be available from Arroway. Critiquing your process of quickly converting hundreds of high quality textures into Maxwell materials is a good thing for all involved, but you don't seem to want to hear it.

I personally would much rather see you take it one category at a time, creating great materials instead of cookie cutter "lowest common denominator" starting point materials.

[Half Life]

Again, I do not work for Next Limit -- and I have said I would be more than willing to let them take over and do an "official" version. However I'm not going to be pushed into doing it for them... I will do what I believe is best.

I didn't ask to do this, I was asked...

Also this idea that it will be "quickly" done is showing a distinct lack of understanding of the work involved. This will be a full-time job for a solid month -- I would not commit that time unless I thought I was right... especially for free.

Right now I'm being monday morning quarterbacked (I know you'll understand as a football fan).

Best,
Jason.

[David Solito]

I prefer the left one indeed.

"ND 3 for the reflective layer" ... this is also what is mentionned in the knowledge base for wood material
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/knfaq/Wood

Question (perhaps out of the purpose): why users have the same and same question over years (caustics throw dielectrics, arroway conversion, liquid in glass, etc) and not being explained by NL simply or schematically on a FAQ?

[Mihai]

don't make me get nasty.

Obviously reading comprehension is not your strong suit so I'll quote myself from earlier in this same thread:

What have you been so far? Discretely rude?

So no the Nd of 3 is not universal(duh!) -- try paying attention instead of making foolish assumptions and you will find I am much easier to get along with.

The reason I settled on a Nd of 3 for the wood in that example is because the most specular parts are actually metal nails in it

Most parts of that specular texture is for the wood itself, that is the interest of it, and that is what counts. If you feel so strongly for the nails, in that example, make an extra layer for the nails, and do the material for them properly.

I'm not going to sit here and go over with you in fine detail all of my reasons, like I said if you don't like my version, make your own...

Oh I already understood I'm not worthy to ask your reasons, but for an artist, being so protectionist to your own personal way of thinking is a handicap. Goodbye.

[Half Life]

Really? you are going to really make me type all this out? I make videos so as to avoid endlessly using a thousand words when a picture will do...

Alright here goes -- I'll try to keep this simple and we can call it a peace offering.

The specular map (texture) for that material is designed in such a way that the only parts of that material that will get the full intensity of the specular is the nails... therefor it is the only part to really be concerned about when considering the full intensity specular effect (Nd).

But more than that what exactly is the Nd of wood really? I mean if you want to get technical the surface of wood is a highly anisotropic surface but we do not have any mapping solutions for that currently so any specular effect you see will only be a crude approximation.

But even more than that you really should not even use a specular layer at all for nails since they are metallic, and metallic objects should be best made through regular BSDF roughness right? Yeah, except that we have baked-in lighting to consider and also the various surface grimes and whatnot -- so really what is the Nd of all of that? It could not be calculated.

So the real result is you cannot arrive at a correct answer since a correct answer is not possible with the tools (Maxwell/Arroway) since the material is far too complex for a simple answer -- so we chose the best compromise... the Nd of 3 being a good baseline compromise of generic solid objects as we can pretty much all agree(or so I thought).

Now hopefully that will satisfy you.

[Bubbaloo]

Also this idea that it will be "quickly" done is showing a distinct lack of understanding of the work involved.

Aren't you looking for a way to automate the process? Could that be considered a quick way of doing it? Hmmmm?

A "quantity over quality" approach is the exact opposite of what Maxwell is. and furthermore,

[Half Life]

You can only automate it so much -- the settings are not consistent at all so each will have to be hand edited after a certain point. Like I said, it all seems simple from the outside but it is still an immense amount of work.

Also like I have said (it feels like a thousand times) I do not feel this is in fact a inferior solution -- if I thought it was I would have come up with a better one. If you really feel you can do better than be my guest -- I'm sure Arroway will be interested in somebody who can provide a better solution.

I've got better things to do with my time anyway.

But lets be real here -- you will neither use these nor would you ever do this much work to give away for free -- so what do you care? I make no claims to represent Next Limit so where is the problem other than in your own perception of the situation? If anything having a free high-quality set runs counter to your interests... you've told me before that you thought I should charge for my materials rather than give them away.

I feel like I'm missing something with all the winks -- I think I've been wrestling with this stupid topic for far too long and have lost sight of fun.. so I'm outta here.

Best,
Jason.

[zdeno]

.. so I'm outta here.

what a pitty ... Don't go.

it is the most thrilling thread on this forum since 2009
and it is priceless to see Mihai in WTFBerseker mode
I have never achieve to piss him off so high he "kills the goose that laid the golden egg for one meal"

but the most wise words said someone else

Question (perhaps out of the purpose): why users have the same and same question over years (caustics throw dielectrics, arroway conversion, liquid in glass, etc) and not being explained by NL simply or schematically on a FAQ?

so , +1