[Req] Fix and Improve the Indigo Material Preview Scene

[PureSpider]

The cam was closer before but was moved away cause of just the displacement issues you encountered... displacing materials out of view.

Else, I LOVE the new base and scene alltogether!
Really really well done!

Oh and... make the logo completely visible for non-displaced materials!

[Whaat]

The cam was closer before but was moved away cause of just the displacement issues you encountered... displacing materials out of view.

I tried many different camera angles and camera distances and I think this is my favorite (in previous post). I know that highly displaced materials will be clipped by the camera but I don't think it's a big deal. The Maxwell scene has this same issue (sorry for the constant comparisons... ) and it doesn't take anything away from the scene. I think the good outweighs the bad.

(Oh..I fixed the indigo logo position. (Rendering new test now...)

[OnoSendai]

Looks good Whaat, but the old base was better IMHO. can you change it back?

[Whaat]

Looks good Whaat, but the old base was better IMHO. can you change it back?

The problem is (as I have mentioned), the old base mesh did not subdivide well and resulted in crappy displacement. The aspect ratio of many of the triangles is very long. Also, that base is really hard to do a good UV map on (at least with my current skills).

Is there a way to rebuild a mesh in Blender to fix the aspect ratio of the triangles? I didn't find anything yet. If I can fix the mesh of the old base, I would like to do a comparison of the bases using the new scene. Then we can put it to a vote or something.

The new base was mainly an experiment but I think it turned out pretty good.

More fixes:
- I balanced the lighting a bit better
- fixed the indigo logo on the base.

Here is a more 'finished' render of the scene. I'm really liking this....

[OnoSendai]

That looks great Whaat.
I agree, the old base did have some modelling issues.
But I did like it design-wise, I thought it was a good-looking and clever use of the Indigo logo.

[pixie]

Looks good Whaat, but the old base was better IMHO. can you change it back?

The problem is (as I have mentioned), the old base mesh did not subdivide well and resulted in crappy displacement. The aspect ratio of many of the triangles is very long. Also, that base is really hard to do a good UV map on (at least with my current skills).

Is there a way to rebuild a mesh in Blender to fix the aspect ratio of the triangles? I didn't find anything yet. If I can fix the mesh of the old base, I would like to do a comparison of the bases using the new scene. Then we can put it to a vote or something.

The new base was mainly an experiment but I think it turned out pretty good.

More fixes:
- I balanced the lighting a bit better
- fixed the indigo logo on the base.

Here is a more 'finished' render of the scene. I'm really liking this....

Please share

[Jeff Hammond]

fwiw (about 2¢), design wise (i don't know about function wise), the old one looks better to me..

also, the camera angle is up too high in your latest version.. that combined with the smaller base makes the whole thing feel top heavy as opposed to the stout & solid look of the other one.

[edit] well, i dunno.. the new one looks okay too but the camera angle is still too high.

[psor]

I have to agree with Nik and Jeff. Anyway, thanks for your work Whaat.



take care
psor

[Whaat]

Please share

Soon....

I managed to improve the original base mesh. Here are some comparisons using some different camera angles.

For the one with the closest camera angle, I enlarged the base (maybe a bit too much).

Comments?

[PureSpider]

Whaat, can you post the model with your base (rotated indigo logo) as obj or 3ds please?

[Whaat]

Figured out how to cut and fill in Blender...

[Whaat]

Whaat, can you post the model with your base (rotated indigo logo) as obj or 3ds please?

ZIP file contains:
- blend file
- 3DS export from blender
- scene textures

This is a work in progress....feel free to contribute!

[suvakas]

I personally don't like it. Seems like a cheap Maxwell rip-off to me.
Placement of the logo and base are exactly like Maxwell has and the camera view is distorted way too much which makes it to look bad.
But this is only my personal opinion and I appreciate your effort, Whaat.

[PureSpider]

Yeah I would also change the gray part of the base and the cam perspective.
Else I think the rotated indigo logo has great potential cause of the different thickness and sharp edges.
I'll see what I can do with the model file

[Whaat]

OK, here is the final version for all you lovers of the classic Indigo Material Preview scene....

List of changes:
- reset transformations of preview models (i.e. fixed scaling of bump and displacement values)
- improved base mesh
- tweaked UVs of base mesh
- changed 'b' value of ground material texture to 0.75
- added subdivision parameters so that scene will work with displacement (no subdivision performed if not using displacement)
- added emission scale to preview model so emitting materials should work- NOTE: There may be bug with the Indigo material editor. It hangs when you try to render an emitting material. Ono, please check! (maybe I messed something up)

To use, unzip to this folder:
C:\Program Files\Indigo Renderer\data\preview_scenes\mat_db2

and modify the preview scenes config XML file to this:

Code: Select all

<material_editor_settings>
	<preview_scene_list>
		<scene>
			<name>Material Database Model</name>
			<path>data/preview_scenes/mat_db/matpreviewscene_igmesh.igs</path>
		</scene>
		<scene>
			<name>Sphere</name>
			<path>data/preview_scenes/sphere/IMPsphere.igs</path>
		</scene>
		<scene>
			<name>Material Database Model2</name>
			<path>data/preview_scenes/mat_db2/matdb2.igs</path>
		</scene>
	</preview_scene_list>
</material_editor_settings>