Indigo on OS X, New Gui and beta test group

[neo0.]

What would be the benefits of Yet Another 3D Studio?

Well, as kellpossible said there are obviously benefits to having indigo the way it is right now. Simple work flow. I don't like the way kerkythea is and that's why I switched to indigo However, there are a few downsides of the "multiple independent exporter" approach :
» When people have trouble (as anyone does, especially newbies), no one can provide assistance until they specify their exporter and exporter version. With over half a dozen exporterts and different versions of each (a stable, a beta, and sometimes even another), the actual number of people here that can help them is very small. This is why it often takes a few days to receive an answer for an issue.

» Lack of consistency between exporters. Blendigo is allegedly the most capable exporter, and skindigo lacks specular reflection for phong materials (aside from manually editing the igm which seems like a bit much to ask for someone who wants to use the GUI.) In order to have access to the most capable exporter, blendigo, you must use Blender which involves overcoming it's high learning curve.

»Discrepancy between exporters and Indigo. New features are introduced (through different version of indigo) faster than they can be incorporated into the different exporters. The exporters are conduits to indigo, and thus, under this system, users can't take full advantage of indigo. More critically than new features, this problem also extends to bux fixes. There might be a critical bug fix like a crash that was addressed in the latest version of indigo, and that simply can't reach people because in order to give people access to the bug fixes, they would also need to do things like update material code, etc. Indigo is a limiting factor unto itself, from a user standpoint..

That said, Im beginning to wonder if the gap between separate exporters and full blown studio app can be bridged. Maybe you could press a button within your app and your model/scene would be exported to indigo with all the material groups, and you could edit your materials there, with some sort of a real time material previewer. Radium renderer can do "real time" material previews, where changes to physically correct materials are updated as you make them. The changes aren't shown instantly, but the render time is pretty short and it beats the clumsy trial and error process of starting render → Finding problem with material → Shutting down a render and making another educated guess → starting render → Finding a problem with material. The time saved could be massive. It could also provide a rough preview of your lighting, allowing you to tell whether things are too bright or dark.

[CTZn]

The Indigo API should allow "real-time" previewing of scenes I believe.

Now I will share a bit of my short coding experience: when you are chaining applications toward a final product (here an image), you really want to avoid dispatching functionalities accross applications, and have each doing one special thing to keep a good control over the workflow, avoiding redundances etc.

In your scenario neo0, I can imagine that a lot of people would not use Indigo, just because there is such an intermediary program forced into their workflow.

In the other hand, the more functionalities integrated into a proprietary, intermediate application, the less hassle for exporters I suppose, good point

[suvakas]

The Indigo API should allow "real-time" previewing of scenes I believe.

What do you mean ? Did I miss something?

[benn]

I talked with Ono about developing a studio because it's something I was really keen on - creating a good powerful studio application that would mean that all the plugins had to do was export the model, and you could do all the material work in "Indigo Studio".

I've changed my mind though - and it's clear that the best solution is to have powerful and up-to-date plugins that let you keep your existing workflow. We've got a few ideas about how we can keep the exporters up to date and in step with Indigo.

[Kosmokrator]

if i understand well...plugins for every 3d app will be supported by the indigo team?
that mean an stable and up-to-date plugin with every new indigo release??

hhmmm sounds too good to be true...
please infor me!!

[fused]

» Lack of consistency between exporters. Blendigo is allegedly the most capable exporter, and skindigo lacks specular reflection for phong materials (aside from manually editing the igm which seems like a bit much to ask for someone who wants to use the GUI.) In order to have access to the most capable exporter, blendigo, you must use Blender which involves overcoming it's high learning curve.

if it wasnt for the word "allegedly" id say youre ignorant.

[fused]

I've changed my mind though - and it's clear that the best solution is to have powerful and up-to-date plugins that let you keep your existing workflow. We've got a few ideas about how we can keep the exporters up to date and in step with Indigo.

its good that we all agree that breaking the workflow is not good
im excited about whats coming!

sorry for double post

[crojack]

I very much like the fact that I do all my modeling and materials in a program that I already know very well, and than export it to the renderer. There is no learning curve for me, as far as learning a new program.

So, please just keep Indigo doing what it does best, rendering!

There is one great benefit to the way Indigo and the exporters are right now,
they are FREE!

[CTZn]

The Indigo API should allow "real-time" previewing of scenes I believe.

What do you mean ? Did I miss something?

I mean, I thought the API was allowing to return the framebuffer at a fixed resolution into the host UI, my bad

[fused]

That's possible with the Indigo SDK, as mentioned 4734943 times in various threads in the forum before
If you need it that bad, go buy the SDK!

[neo0.]

That's possible with the Indigo SDK, as mentioned 4734943 times in various threads in the forum before
If you need it that bad, go buy the SDK!

That wasn't my point. It just wasn't about me, if you had read my post that would become clear. I believed that making indigo similar to a studio app, in certain ways, might be beneficial to everyone.

[CTZn]

However, if benn said he changed his mind, then probably is he agreeing with OnoSendai on that regard.

Then what ? Record was taken, thank you

[neo0.]

All that would be needed for material previews, would be a fast, optimized scene at low res (100*100 or something), and a fixed number of samples/pixel to obtain a clear render.

This took 33 minutes to render.. Not exactly real time but that could be cut down to a few minutes with decreased resolution and optimized lighting maybe.

It's just a tall cube with a meshemitter assigned to the "ceiling" face.

[benn]

Hi neo0,

There is a standard material preview scene, and I've been working on a simpler version of the same thing for doing a material editor - but what you've got there is pretty much the same thing.

Ben

[crojack]

All that would be needed for material previews, would be a fast, optimized scene at low res (100*100 or something), and a fixed number of samples/pixel to obtain a clear render.

This took 33 minutes to render.. Not exactly real time but that could be cut down to a few minutes with decreased resolution and optimized lighting maybe.

It's just a tall cube with a meshemitter assigned to the "ceiling" face.

You do know that there are previews built in to Skindigo.........don't you?