[Req] Fix and Improve the Indigo Material Preview Scene

[Whaat]

Some of these requests have been made already (even by me) but I thought it would be a good idea to collect all the requests for the material preview scene in one thread. The current scene is quite good but lacks the polish required for commercial software. Here are my requests. Please add yours.

1) Make the scene usable for displaced materials
2) Make the scene usable for emitting materials
3) Use MLT for the preview scene or automatically switch to MLT if the material contains a medium.
4) Remove or fix the bubbles (only mildly useful for about 5% of all materials, plus, they can ruin a displaced material preview). The SSS bar should fulfill the purpose of the bubbles. It could be that the bubbles are just modelled wrong. IMO, they should be modelled using an 'air' material with precedence of 2. I think they are actually modelled as part of the preview sphere mesh (and material) which is wrong.
5) Fix the preview model scale issues! I finally figured out (I know I'm a bit slow... ) why the base of the preview model never showed proper bump mapping or displacement. The whole mesh is scaled very low! This results in scaling of all the displacement and bump values. You can see the scaling in the rotation matrix.

Code: Select all

<model>
		<pos>-0.007315 -0.024274 0.152628</pos>
		<scale>1.0</scale>
		<rotation>
			<matrix>
				0.010986 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.010986 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.010986 
			</matrix>		</rotation>
		<mesh_name>preview_base</mesh_name>
	</model>

The scale of the preview sphere mesh is also wrong. The problem is apparent when you choose a displacement value of 5cm (for example). If you compare the actual displacement to the 10cm grid, you can see what I mean.
6 )Improve the preview base mesh if possible or create a entirely new base. The UV mapping is kind of wavy and the mesh seems to be quite messy (does not subdivide well. Render a material with random triangle colors and you'll see what I mean by messy).
7) The whole scene just lacks something. Maybe it's the lighting or the environment. If you look at Maxwell's scene, it just looks better somehow, and I don't think it's due to the rendering engine.

I would do these changes myself but the preview scene is only in Blender and IGS format and I don't know Blender. Ono and Ben are quite busy at the moment. Is there anyone in the community who wants to take on these tasks?

[Godzilla]

All very good points, +1 to all.

I'll try my hand at improving the scene, (Though I doubt it will do any good )... where exactly is the download for the .blend? I recall viewing it a few months back but I forget the name of the thread..

[Zom-B]

Another improvement would be the use of Exit Portals around the studio setup. This would enhance the speed a little because of the EnvMap used. But Since it is a preview scene its all about speed, isn't it?!

[Whaat]

(Though I doubt it will do any good :wink)

Nice try...we all know you got the skillz to do this.

[PureSpider]

This is the scene I'm using for internal material testing, let me know what you think

[Whaat]

@purespider:

How can you keep this beautiful scene from the Indigo community for so long! Simply great! I wonder how it would manage highly displaced materials...

Render times must be pretty long, though...no?

[CTZn]

I adviced him to make the top arch of a square section but he refused

[PureSpider]

Render times must be pretty long, though...no?

At the moment the scene is not optimized at all, I never was in the mood to do it

I can share the pigs so you can try it out for yourself... if you want me to?

[neo0.]

Another improvement would be the use of Exit Portals around the studio setup. This would enhance the speed a little because of the EnvMap used. But Since it is a preview scene its all about speed, isn't it?!

Definitely agree.

[Whaat]

Well, I guess no one has the time to fix this scene so I'll take a crack at it. It gives me a chance to improve my Blender skills at least.

These are two renders of the exact same material. Here's what I've changed so far:

- removed bubbles
- reset the transformations of the meshes so the displacement and bump is the correct scale
- lowered the 'b' value of the ground texture so it's not so white and washed out
- changed the subdivisions settings so it is actually useful for displaced materials

I really want to change the base of the preview scene. The mesh is really bad for displacement and the UV mapping is bad (mainly due to the bad mesh)

I thought it would be cool to use the Indigo logo shape and revolve it around the up axis of the scene (kind of like the 'L' shape in the Maxwell preview. I'll post it later if I can pull it off.

[OnoSendai]

Thanks Whaat,
I'll be following your progress, let me know when it's done and we can think about re-rendering all the materials.

[Whaat]

Some tests with the new base. I beat my head against the wall trying to UV map the base in Blender. But in the end, it came out ok. Comments?

[Whaat]

One thing that always bothered me about the Indigo preview scene was that the preview object seemed a bit too 'distant'. In the Maxwell scene, I always felt like I could reach out and touch the material.

When I examined the Indigo scene, I noted that the focal length of the lens was set to 50mm so I made it a wider angle and moved the camera closer.

Comments?

[Whaat]

More tests:

[pixie]

One thing that always bothered me about the Indigo preview scene was that the preview object seemed a bit too 'distant'. In the Maxwell scene, I always felt like I could reach out and touch the material.

When I examined the Indigo scene, I noted that the focal length of the lens was set to 50mm so I made it a wider angle and moved the camera closer.

Comments?

You've bump onto something here, they become much more vivid! Me like those much more!