WHD Posted February 5, 2010 Report Share Posted February 5, 2010 Hi All, I've just been working on a project and it reminded me of something that I would really like to see. It would be really cool if there was an option to save all the textures with materials when they are saved. Even cooler would be if we could create a folder at the same time to contain all the components and material. I find that I frequently have materials but the textures have been inadvertently misplaced because I was in a hurry when I created it and forgot to put it all in a folder. Would be great to be able to automatically consolidate everything. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJoly Posted February 6, 2010 Report Share Posted February 6, 2010 Bill, isn't it what Collect does? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted February 6, 2010 Report Share Posted February 6, 2010 Hi Bill, Richard, I think 'Collect Material' (a button next to 'save material') is already in the UP file, though I will double check. Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHD Posted February 6, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2010 Hi Richard and Ian, Richard, "Collect" collects the entire project. It will put textures in their own folders and shaders in theirs but all of them from all materials. If you have massive projects with many materials and other things it takes a while and then you have to trash all the extra stuff. I just want to be able to neatly package up just the components of the single material I'm saving to a folder in the materials folder. Something you could send to someone and it would work as packaged. Ian, if I understand your reply correctly I find that I just have load and save in the info tab. At least that is what I see in EIAS 8 unless there is a trick to it. I should also clarify something. The save window that pops up on a Mac when you save a material does have the option to create a folder. I just thought it would be nice to type in a single name in a field and it would create the folder and put everything in it for you applying the same name to both folder and the material. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted February 7, 2010 Report Share Posted February 7, 2010 Hi Bill, What I meant to say was that the idea made it into the EIAS 8 User Pack list, but didn't make it to the shortlist for voting, I will speak to the Igors, but it may well (and hopefully will) be up for voting in the EIAS 9 user pack. Best, Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igors Posted February 7, 2010 Report Share Posted February 7, 2010 Hi, Bill, Ian, All The idea is interested but requires a further specification. Clear that all textures/procedurals should be collected. But what is a "material" in this context? Master material only? If, for example, user has applied a master and then customized something - so how it should be saved? Please make it well-defined, then let's add this "brown" feature to UP vote list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHD Posted February 8, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2010 Hi Igors and all, I think we need to keep it relatively simple. Modified or specialized materials probably are not worth saving this way if they are optimized to a specific piece of geometry. I think that customization should be left up to the user once they have loaded the material. The reason I made this request is to help make it easier to build and share a library of materials. I think that a simple check box next to the save and load materials in the info tab should suffice. Something like collect/archive material. When selected, it will create a sub-folder in the EI Materials folder using the name you have given the material. It will then deposit the material of the same name and all textures and shaders associated with that material. If we want to make it a bit more full featured and complex it might be useful to collect world-reflection/refraction maps and possibly HDRI sky maps as well. A log file listing critical lighting settings would also be of use or possibly less complex would be a field to allow the user to add comments at the time the material is saved . If this is too much of a pain it is not totally necessary. It is just that a material optimized for GI or photon mapping may not look the same in a Phong/buffer shadow environment. Things that a log could include would be Raytraced , Phong, GI, Photon Mapping,# of lights and their intensity, Use of global reflections or HDRI skymaps, transmission or caustics enabled in the lights . Possibly a users scene scale since materials are mostly scale specific. 1 GU =1meter/foot /inch etc. Most of the things that I can think of for a log are rendering, lighting or global settings that have dramatic influence on the look of a surface. If these can be noted automatically in some way it will help in the reuse of materials. A user notation option would be a fall back if the automatic log is not feasible. Guess it is not so simple. :-) Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeordieJames Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 I'd second the idea of saving a note of the lighting + global settings for materials. I try to save mine out with a name that reminds me how they're set but more often than not time is against me and I forget to do it. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igors Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 Hi All Bill, we've read your explanations and found them quite rational and reasonable. But this formulation is too long to have any chance to win in UP voting. When a voting starts - it will be no time for debates/explanations of "what it does?". If something is unclear (even a little) - a feature is out of board momentary, UP works so. So please find a short/impressive formula for the feature (to avoid further unneeded questions) - then it makes a sene Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHD Posted February 10, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 Hi Igors, A bit confused. Are you saying that the note field or log is not possible or just that my description is too complex? If the log or notation is possible which is more feasible from your programming view? Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juanxer Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 I think it is more about describing exactly how do you think it should work: the mechanics of the user interface, what files would result from that, naming conventions, etc, in a bulletpoints sort of way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJoly Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 Exactly. The clearer and to the point your suggestion is, the easier for the developers to estimate the work involved and get the "Up for 9" stamp and, subsequently, attract more users votes to make it to the V9 UserPack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igors Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 Hi, Bill A bit confused. Are you saying that the note field or log is not possible or just that my description is too complex? If the log or notation is possible which is more feasible from your programming view? No technical probs here. But what to save? You started from material. Then light. Then also GI settings. We agreed, everything makes a sense. But how we can estimate a task if it's changing/mutable on fly? What is a finite list/forumula? For example it can be like: Objects NotePad The feature allows to save and load all actual settings for: - Lights - Materials - GI as readable text files. Only actual vaues are stored (not animation). All or some settings can be read (according to UI Tabs) and applied (according to current Frame/Time mode). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHD Posted February 14, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2010 Hi Igors, Richard and Juan, Thanks for the clarification. I'll try to come up with a better description. Sorry for the delay but I had a deadline last week. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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