Indigo Renderer Forum

So I am sure you would all agree that a comprehensive set of updated SkIndigo tutorials is long overdue especially now with the many significant workflow changes that have occurred since version 3.0.15.

I want to start on these tutorials very soon but I was hoping you could suggest some ideas for subject matter. I want the tutorials to be interesting and useful (think real-world project examples)

I welcome your ideas for cool tutorial scenes as well. If you have (or know of) a simple, but interesting SKP model that could be utilized in a tutorial, please share.

Thanks!

This is a very interesting topic indeed!

I actually have a couple issues in mind which would need proper tutorials: first thing would be the explaination of the new workflow for mapping surfaces working with multiple UV sets.

...second thing: recently I was wondering how to blend materials with a simple value NOT taking into any account a blending map. It's very difficult to explain..: I'll try! I want to achieve a particular kind of parquet, which is varnished on the surface AND on a second layer beneath (something like a very smooth phong mat finished with a thin coating). Well, I need to map the wood floor, so I have to make a new SU mat and give it a parquet texture. If I set that material to be the blend shader, the map is taken into account to distribute the A and B materials on the surface, while I want them one "above" another. I simply want to mix the materials together: there is no problem when I have two non-textured materials (car paints for example), but I can't imagine how to mix two textured mats without losing a given mapping.

For sure, some explainations of how dummies work would be interesting for the rookies.

I can't suggest ONE test scene for tutorials, as I usually make one ad hoc every time: I can contribute with ideas (and models) once we've some specific requests. I think in general that the scenes have to be well focused, and with good base geometry, so we can appreciate the small details Indigo reproduces while rendering.



Maybe it's not the right place, but I'd like to bump once again the mat preview scene issue I've reported some time ago: we sketchuppers absolutely need a (customizable?) preview scene mapped in meters, so we can extimate precisely how bumps and displacement will affect the material.
Thank you a lot Whaat. You work is great as usual

For sure, some explainations of how dummies work would be interesting for the rookies.

no so much of a tutorial but more of an explanation about certain material settings..

for instance, bump defaults at 0.01..
.01 what? meters,inches,model units? etc.

i know it used to be meters.. then it switched or something.. and now i'm not sure what it means..

i don't do much bump mapping but when i do, i just mess around (i.e. a quite a few test renders) with it til it looks ok.. it'd be nice to have a proper explanation or visual examples/comparisons of what a lot of those settings mean and/or what scale their value is based on..

(or maybe not even a tutorial style explanation.. just having the units shown in the material panel would be ok)

much of the render settings panel is pretty much self explanatory.. the tracing method could be explained a bit better but i'm sure that one's been done to death elsewhere..




i think the main thing to realize when making instructions/manuals for these rendering apps (it's not only indigo that speaks alienese) is that we're not all rendering nerds.. in fact, most of us aren't (well, definitely a lot of render geeks on the render forums but i'm speaking in general)..

i'm not saying you have to dumb down the explanations or anything like.. it's just finding the right language/examples/metaphors to communicate with a broader population..



[edit] but yeah.. lots of visuals/examples/comparisons etc.. i believe most people in 3d modeling land are visual by nature and we learn much better when things are presented in that form.. personally, i'm add as f*@! and there's no way i can make it through more than a paragraph or two of "inverse x over the coefficient ies wattage phong i.u.d. = mlt accelerator… you see how easy that is!? " uh.. no keep that stuff to a minimum.


[edit2] or maybe a sample file (a skp file.. not a pigs) that is set up to where it has the same material (for instance) in there only with different settings applied.. or being able to put them in different circumstances..
stuff like 'change the lighting parameter to this and notice how it affects that' etc..

not so much of a "here's a sweet model with all the good setting applied.. push render and watch how pretty it becomes"
it'd probably be hard to come up with the right file for that but it'd be a good way to learn with.. at least for me..

External references would be great. The current workflow involves steps that regular people could easily mistake for witchcraft.

LOL

At start, they do.
It actually comes pretty easy after a little excercise, though.
Anyway, a small tut would help the new users for sure.

Sorry whaat, simple tut request.

I'd very like - as a user - to see a tut about the creation of a nice water pool (with a smooth light blue absorption) with cool caustics, generated with displacement map.
I tried some techniques yesterday, but haven't been able to get nice results...

Thanks a lot!

Very nice topic. What i would like to see would be a nice clear explanation on how to use environmental maps. There is a tutorial on Youtube, but doesn't go deep enough in the subject. When i use my EXR images as maps, I get a very pixelized backgorund, unable to scale also. Clouds are too zoomed in... ARGH!!! having a hard time with this... Any help on this would be great.
Thank you and kind regards.
Alejandro

Hi Alejandro!
..waiting for the tutorial, I confirm you that the envmaps are not scaleable: you can only rotate them on their z-axis. When you use envaps you might generally want to use backplates for the final image, so you won't get a spherical-stretched feeling (even if very subtle) AND to be able to get the exact background you're looking for while keeping the desired light conditions.
I generally enable the "foreground alpha" option, so it's easier in postproduction..

Alejandro: to make the scale look smaller and the resolution look higher, use a camera with a shorter focal length.

Great call on the need for environment map guidance..its a powerful feature but its in my "too hard basket" for now.
I'd love to be able to create and save env maps + camera settings and lighting layers so I could reapply them to various scenes.
In fact, a saved library of Indigo Settings would be nice. Eg, if I'm doing an exterior house render for printing at A4, I could load up the full suite of settings I used for the last house render that I did, including environment map and camera settings.


A good material creation tutorial would be nice. For dummies. (like me).

ak-sam wrote:A good material creation tutorial would be nice. For dummies. (like me).

Here are two video series for skindigo, they are a little older but still 90% valid!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... A2CD263FE1
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 9b6eUq-9QV

Pibuz wrote:Hi Alejandro!
..waiting for the tutorial, I confirm you that the envmaps are not scaleable: you can only rotate them on their z-axis. When you use envaps you might generally want to use backplates for the final image, so you won't get a spherical-stretched feeling (even if very subtle) AND to be able to get the exact background you're looking for while keeping the desired light conditions.
I generally enable the "foreground alpha" option, so it's easier in postproduction..

Hello Pibuz,
I took your advice and started using backplates and getting very good results. Thank you for the tip my friend!
Kind regards,
Alejandro