material handling

[joschy]

hi there,
it would be nice to have a easier way to handle the material stuff. Currently the materials are directly linked in the tree branch, how it was in V4. If you have splitted branches, because the animation need it, the same material is spreaded in different branches. This makes the material handling annoying. If you have to change the material settings from one material wich is used in differend branches, you have to go in every branch to change it...
May be you find a way like other 3D application handel this, like a material attribute node. Such a node only link materials and the materials stays in a material editor, only once. If you have to change material setting from a material wich is linked in different branches, you only have to change this material in the material editor.

Second, a way to copy/paste/save material settings.

Third, a way to save custom gradients.

this would be nice

thank's joschy

[ErikB]

Hi Joschy,

Interesting idea - we have talked generally about having a more node-based material system at some point, but this is not something for the short term roadmap, obviously.

copy/paste material settings - yes, this is known. As of either this or the next point update (can't remember which) you can duplicate material stages. Copy/Paste in general is on the todo list, no clear timing though.

saving/re-using gradients is actually already sort of possible. Use the texture gradient node - the input is simply a string value - you can do with that whatever you want.

-E

[joschy]

Hi Erik,
sure, i can imagine that this is not done quick and easy But good to hear that this kind of thoughts on your mind.
With the gradients, do you have a simple example for this?
I can only hover with the mouse over the edit gradient button to get the resulting string. Not a easy way to get this string as an editable parameter, or miss i something?
But have no clue to get such a string as an input for the gradient.

Gradient input string

thank's
joschy

[Dennis]

Ahoi Joschy,

why dont you simply connect a string to the gradient?

*bind the gradient to the string.. simply drag and drop and get the value from the string...*

the formatting for the string is like:

RGBA;c0(0,0,0);c2...

c0 = is the first stop, followed by rgb values....

best regArts
Dee

[joschy]

sounds simple, but...

error

may be it's my fault, because the string is empty

[Dennis]

Nope i connected an empty string aswell...
changed the string.. (the old gradient was still valid and used.. until i changed the string to a valid string (i missed RGBA; in my case))
as soon as the string was valid, it worked and used the string...

latest version? (v5.0.2.126?)

regArts

GradientString.vza

(6.66 KiB) Downloaded 311 times

[joschy]

yep, latest version. I've tried it again and now it works
also your archive file.
Cool feature good to know

thank's
joschy

[Dennis]

Btw ...

C0 = the "0" is the position for the STOP.

c0.125 = moves the Stop-Point

e.g.:

RGBA;c0:(0,0,0);c0.125:(1,1,1);c0.5:(1,0,0);c0.75:(0,0,0);c1:(1,1,1)

the "C's" define the stops in a range from 0-1

result:

PPS:
to create a HARDSTOP... simply set:
RGBA;c0:(0,0,0);c0.125:(1,1,1);c0.1251:(1,0,1);c1:(1,1,1)

Best RegArts
Dee

[joschy]

Nice, good stuff for the manual

thank's

[chriss0212]

or just take this

is it right, that alpha doesn't work?

greets

christian