How do You learn creating materials ?

[Cato]

I do my first steps in creating and using indigo materials and it feels like in a labyrinth with lots of surprises.
How did You start learning this stuff? Is it all trial and error?

[Soup]

Playing around in the material editor is one great way to learn about the materials, for sure.
You can check out the manual page here

Downloading materials from the matdb and looking how they work is another great way.

[Zom-B]

Since Indigos material system is physically based you first need to understand the few base models and parameters like IOR, exponent and the abc system.
From here on it is very easy to choose the right representation of real life materials by a Indigo material model.

Regarding material creation I prefer to create and test my materials + textures in the final scene environment to prevent "surprises".

[PureSpider]

Regarding material creation I prefer to create and test my materials + textures in the final scene environment to prevent "surprises".

Same for me, guess that's what C4D dudes are used to

[zeitmeister]

Yupp.

The material editor test scene is very nice, but in many cases it has got nothing to do with how the created material comes out in the final scene.
In my opinion especially phong IOR and exponent values are very hard to estimate and develop in the material editor scene.

But, what shall's.
Muss man's hald rischdisch mache.

[PureSpider]

But, what shall's.
Muss man's hald rischdisch mache.

Rischdiiiisch!

[Silmä]

Yupp.

The material editor test scene is very nice, but in many cases it has got nothing to do with how the created material comes out in the final scene.

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could export the selected mesh + material to material editor for tweaking? Shouldn't be that hard to implement, either.

[Cato]

Nix verstähn deitsch

Thanks for Your responses. Playing around with the material editor is what I did first. Manipulating existing materials was the next step. But i'm afraid, now comes "rischdisch mache".
By the way: What is IOR and abc system?

[Doug Armand]

Nix verstähn deitsch

Thanks for Your responses. Playing around with the material editor is what I did first. Manipulating existing materials was the next step. But i'm afraid, now comes "rischdisch mache".
By the way: What is IOR and abc system?

IOR is Index of Refraction - abc is the first 3 letters of the alphabet

[Zom-B]

He he Doug.... nice one

Seem first thing for you would be to study the Indigo manual and the fitting exporter Manual Cato!
This should answer a lot of questions.... no pain no gain!

A (Quadratic), B (Multiplier) and C (Offset) are the 3 modifiers for textures, bump maps etc. For beginners you can let A + C settings alone, only the B parameter is important for setting up Bump & Displacement strength (in meters!). Also Exponent for Exponent Maps is controllable by this Parameter.