Indigo Phong vs Kerkythea Layered Procedural Fresnel

[Whaat]

I was just reading the recently released Kerkythea Material Editor Guide (which patricks has done a great job on BTW). I think giannis and co. have done an amazing job with Kerky but I was surprised how complex it is to create a physically accurate plastic material (no sss). These are the steps as I understand them (see pages 9-13 of the guide) :
- Create a material with two layers
- Layer one is 100% diffuse
- Layer two is 100% specular
- Turn off fresnel attentuation in material panel
- set ior value for both layers (must be the same in both layers)
- Use Procedural fresnel map to control the weights of the layers
- Invert Fresnel ramp low color and high color for diffuse layer

My question is this: Does the Indigo Phong material do all of these steps automatically? In other words, is the Indigo Phong (fresnel scale=1.0) equivalent to the Kerkythea layered procedural fresnel? Or is the Kerkythea material more physically accurate? From what I understand, the two should be the same.

[zsouthboy]

Phong material is a specular reflector AND a diffuse component. So they're having you set it up correctly.

But, wow, I didn't realize Kerkythea was so hard to set up in that respect.

IDK re: indigo. I'd guess it's physically accurate though.

Why don't you set up a simple cornell box and show us?

[CTZn]

From what I understand, the two should be the same.

That's my opinion also. It appears that Kerkytea is more complex to set up, but also more flexible due to that layer system. But for plastic I'ld stick with Indigo

[Whaat]

It appears that Kerkytea is more complex to set up, but also more flexible due to that layer system. But for plastic I'ld stick with Indigo

I agree completely! Kerkythea has a very powerful and versatile system to create materials but I prefer the simplicity of Indigo.

[patricks]

Hi everybody

if you have read the tutorial until the end you will see that it is not that complicated to setup your materials You only have to creat once the plastic material and then when ever you need a plastic material , you only have to set the diffuse color or bitmap without any other changes , meaning that in KT we creat materials that will work later with any diffuse bitmap we apply to them without having to go through the whole process again . At the end it is muche quicker and easy because any person that has created a material can share them with others and they dont have to tweek them again ......
( read from page 10 to 13 again and you will understand )

Greetings Patrick

[Whaat]

Thanks, patricks. I should have pointed that out in my original post (saving material to be used later). I am sure that material setup in Kerkythea is easy for some , but I get confused because there are so many options and parameters. How do you know what is the best way to create a material when it seems there are so many choices? For example, what about using a single layer and using diffuse+specular+fresnel attenuation? Is this not physically accurate as well as long as diffuse+specular=1?
Sorry...I guess these questions belong in the Kerky forum...

[patricks]

Thanks, patricks. I should have pointed that out in my original post (saving material to be used later). I am sure that material setup in Kerkythea is easy for some , but I get confused because there are so many options and parameters. How do you know what is the best way to create a material when it seems there are so many choices? For example, what about using a single layer and using diffuse+specular+fresnel attenuation? Is this not physically accurate as well as long as diffuse+specular=1?
Sorry...I guess these questions belong in the Kerky forum...

the answer to your question is "NO" it would not be accurate and i explain it in the Manual why it is not accurate (page 8 to 12 ) .
A lot of people dont want to creat there materials , that's why you can download the basic plastic material vol2 for example ( and others too ) and you only have to select one of them and add a bitmap or give it a diffuse color ( maybe bump map ) and that's it , no other changes have to be don and you get your accurate plastic material or any other you have selected from the liabrery ( i think it is quite easy .... i dont know any more easy way .....)

Greetings Patrick