Materials Request: Make them easy to share and apply.
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 8:13 am
We can already separate materials in another XML file for editing, but I'd like to take it one step further.
My idea would also work great for the "Materials DB" that does/will exist online here.
Allow the inclusion of a separate XML file for each material in a scene.
Then, we modify the exporters for our various applications (Blender, for example) to do the same thing they already do with the .nk files: if you name a material something.xml, no material is exported, and instead Indigo looks for something.xml (which would be linked from the generated scene file) for that material.
This would keep everyone from going, "Hey, how did you get x material! I'd like to try it!" - simply upload the xml (and textures, if needed)
Judging from your latest work (diffuse/phong masks), materials are already in nodes, so this wouldn't be too hard to do.
Also, allowing at least a few (or infinite) OTHER materials to be called from a material XML would be useful, especially in regards to what I just said.
Thoughts? Criticisms?
I hate to use the "M" word again (Maxwell), but being able to download and share materials rocks!
My idea would also work great for the "Materials DB" that does/will exist online here.
Allow the inclusion of a separate XML file for each material in a scene.
Then, we modify the exporters for our various applications (Blender, for example) to do the same thing they already do with the .nk files: if you name a material something.xml, no material is exported, and instead Indigo looks for something.xml (which would be linked from the generated scene file) for that material.
This would keep everyone from going, "Hey, how did you get x material! I'd like to try it!" - simply upload the xml (and textures, if needed)
Judging from your latest work (diffuse/phong masks), materials are already in nodes, so this wouldn't be too hard to do.
Also, allowing at least a few (or infinite) OTHER materials to be called from a material XML would be useful, especially in regards to what I just said.
Thoughts? Criticisms?
I hate to use the "M" word again (Maxwell), but being able to download and share materials rocks!