Materials

Announcements, requests and support regarding the Blender Indigo export script
m2tts
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 3:55 pm

Re: Materials

Post by m2tts » Thu Dec 22, 2011 3:27 am

Ok, I clicked the wrong thing from his post. Now it opens. Great. Now what I am I supposed to do with this? How do I save it to a library that I will be able to preview materials from? Where is the documentation on this? How are new users supposed to learn all this? I've saved the material to where the Tools; Show Material folder, points to; then I go to the Local Material Database tab; but nothing shows up in there even after closing and reopening Indigo. How do we see what materials we have in our Library? Again, I'll stress the lack of documentation here. Very frustrating.

User avatar
dougal2
Developer
Posts: 2532
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2006 8:17 am
Location: South London

Re: Materials

Post by dougal2 » Thu Dec 22, 2011 3:49 am

Well, I agree to some extent that you have a point regarding being a bit lost on how to get started.

As already stated though, Indigo doesn't really operate as an "Engine+Database", people who use Indigo generally start out using the material editors provided by plugins in their 3D apps. For many people this is a familiar route into modelling and rendering. However, I can see that there are other routes, such as taking models from CAD, applying a set of pre-made materials and rendering from there.
IMO, the latter workflow isn't clearly documented because of the following reasons:
1. It's quite a "new" approach in the Indigo world, only recently have we seen a big increase in users using models derived from CAD
2. The materials database isn't that mature, nor would I expect it to contain many of the standard materials you might need for your purposes

Perhaps you could start a thread in the main support forum raising your concerns - tucked away here in the Blendigo forum, many other forum users are less likely to join your cause to improve Indigo.

User avatar
CTZn
Posts: 7240
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:34 pm
Location: Paris, France

Re: Materials

Post by CTZn » Thu Dec 22, 2011 5:13 am

Myself and many Indigo users will be pleased to fulfill your requests from the material sub-forum:

http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=23

I have to second dougal2 on the lacking documentations, specially because MtI has virtually no documentation.

This is indeed making the learning curve for Indigo slightly stepper than it should. Slightly, because we believe that materials creation is rather an easy process: few material types with few parameters for a wide range of surfaces types.

In all cases your entries are valuable to help us in adapting to your needs. In this regard they are crucial even.

Thank you
obsolete asset

User avatar
CTZn
Posts: 7240
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:34 pm
Location: Paris, France

Re: Materials

Post by CTZn » Thu Dec 22, 2011 5:45 am

I'll try now to address your few concerns with materials management from within the Indigo application, hoping that you won't mind me discarding blendigo wich I do not use.

To download new materials, click the "Online Material Database" button in the upper right toolbar. A browser showing the 30 last materials posted, including thumbnails, will pop, featuring a search box. Click a material row once to show details, then the "Download" button to acquire the material. You will be then asked what action should be taken, between importing, previewing the material within the same Indigo session or within a new instance.

At this point the material was extracted into the local material library, wich can be found by clicking the "Show Material Folder" into the "Tools" menu. The root folder of the local library will appear selected into your OS browser, just enter it to see the content available. The files that Indigo will target there are all IGM (unpacked) files.

You can export an own material locally through the "File" menu, the main one if the scene is a material preview but the one at the top of the "Property Editor" specifically from within a custom scene. Exporting the selected material to the Online library happens by clicking the button to the left of the first one I mentionned, called "Upload Material". The third button there is to browse the materials acquired locally through Indigo's form.
obsolete asset

Voytech
Posts: 236
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:57 am

Re: Materials

Post by Voytech » Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:30 am

Pardon for interrupting, but I think it would be logical to enable ALL materials from the online database, not just the last 30.

User avatar
CTZn
Posts: 7240
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:34 pm
Location: Paris, France

Re: Materials

Post by CTZn » Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:45 am

Obviously, beyond the search box the most basic set of browsing features is still to be added :)

The team has been widely dedicated to internal developments recently, as opposed to interface development I'm affraid (it's a personal opinion as a longtime user). You can righteously expect more from Indigo in the future as more realtime edition options are to be exposed I bet (req: view-dependent subd's back, with a button !).

PS: and I can take no excuses, sir, for I am King of Digression anyways.

;)
obsolete asset

m2tts
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 3:55 pm

Re: Materials

Post by m2tts » Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:16 am

Thank you developers for your thoughtful replies. Yes, there is going to need to be a lot of work if you intend to enter the engineering CAD workflow. Applications need to be as seamless between working environments as possible in order for rendering to be as easy as possible; otherwise you're not going to entice that crowd into using your software. Most CAD packages are nurbs based; being able to integrate or translate into Indigo without having to use a third party polygonal based modeler is also necessary. Other rendering packages are doing this (Modo, Keyshot, and Bunkspeed, to name a few).

From your galleries I see a beautiful render engine. Unfortunately the path into it is just too torturous (and inefficient for us) for now.

User avatar
CTZn
Posts: 7240
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:34 pm
Location: Paris, France

Re: Materials

Post by CTZn » Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:38 am

Thank you for your evaluation and constructive criticism Mark, this was somewhat refreshing :)

Knowing why you do not choose Indigo from where you stand today will help it coming closer to you in the future, so I wish.

Adam
obsolete asset

m2tts
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 3:55 pm

Re: Materials

Post by m2tts » Sat Dec 24, 2011 7:56 am

Ok, Still trying to get an image cause I don't like to give up. I've assigned one of the Indigo materials to a mesh in Blender by using the "external" tab. Browsed to the materials folder that Indigo says is the internal materials folder and picked and assigned it. Now when I go to render I get the following error message:

Error: Scene parsing error: Failed to open file 'c:\users\mmatth~1\appdata\local\temp\../../../mmatthews/AppData/Roaming/Indigo Renderer/materials/Circular_plate_metal_soft/Circular_plate_metal_soft.igm'.

This looks like Blendigo is not writing the correct path.

I have no idea how to assign the material from within Indigo even though I've tried adding the material to the Indigo scene.

User avatar
Headroom
Indigo 100
Posts: 1058
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:07 pm
Location: Spartanburg, SC, USA
Contact:

Re: Materials

Post by Headroom » Sat Dec 24, 2011 10:15 am

Now that's the spirit.

Perhaps place the pigm-file in a more easily accessible location just for testing. Maybe the desktop.

Have you UV-mapped the mesh ?

StompinTom
Indigo 100
Posts: 1828
Joined: Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:33 pm

Re: Materials

Post by StompinTom » Sat Dec 24, 2011 10:56 am

I heard from a little bird somewhere that it's quite possible to render NURBS surfaces natively within Indigo but that it's just not implemented yet, or something like that? Quite interested in that myself, actually, because I'm transitioning to a more NURBS-based workflow for design and production and wouldn't mind keeping the rendering capabilities that I've got right now...

User avatar
Headroom
Indigo 100
Posts: 1058
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:07 pm
Location: Spartanburg, SC, USA
Contact:

Re: Materials

Post by Headroom » Sat Dec 24, 2011 11:16 am

What NURBS based modeling software are you using ?

StompinTom
Indigo 100
Posts: 1828
Joined: Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:33 pm

Re: Materials

Post by StompinTom » Sun Dec 25, 2011 1:48 am

Headroom wrote:What NURBS based modeling software are you using ?
Mostly Rhino, though I'm looking forward to the day when Blender gets a NURBS revamp. Rhino's pretty cool for most complex surface-based stuff, though I'm interested in Maya too, especially because of the SubD-to-NURBS workflow and such...

User avatar
Headroom
Indigo 100
Posts: 1058
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:07 pm
Location: Spartanburg, SC, USA
Contact:

Re: Materials

Post by Headroom » Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:07 am

StompinTom wrote:
Headroom wrote:What NURBS based modeling software are you using ?
Mostly Rhino, though I'm looking forward to the day when Blender gets a NURBS revamp. Rhino's pretty cool for most complex surface-based stuff, though I'm interested in Maya too, especially because of the SubD-to-NURBS workflow and such...
NURBS in Blender would really be nice. I've looked a MIO (Moment Of Inspiration) and it appears to be quite capable. Rhino and Maya are not in the budget.

StompinTom
Indigo 100
Posts: 1828
Joined: Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:33 pm

Re: Materials

Post by StompinTom » Wed Dec 28, 2011 1:13 am

Headroom wrote:
StompinTom wrote:
Headroom wrote:What NURBS based modeling software are you using ?
Mostly Rhino, though I'm looking forward to the day when Blender gets a NURBS revamp. Rhino's pretty cool for most complex surface-based stuff, though I'm interested in Maya too, especially because of the SubD-to-NURBS workflow and such...
NURBS in Blender would really be nice. I've looked a MIO (Moment Of Inspiration) and it appears to be quite capable. Rhino and Maya are not in the budget.
MOI is nice, though I had a hard time getting used to it and making precise things. Rhino is very similar to CAD and has a fair bit of analytical and CAM extensions that make it very useful for fabrication, so it's easier to go back and forth between drawing and modeling with it, I find...

Post Reply
31 posts

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 19 guests