Re: Replacing the shadertree? Possible?

["Tim Leydecker" <BauerOink(at)gmx.de>]

Hi Kim,

as I understood it, you were just sharing your client communications experience...

> > Can it make a sort of stripey, greeny, marbly sort of thing. With
> > splodges. And maybe a couple of holes, with a client breathing down
> > your neck who can change his mind on a sixpence and thinks green is too
> > blue?

But seriously, Andy Jones had pointed out the following here:

> Ultimately, what has benefited us far more is to find ways to reduce the
> building blocks of the shaders to a smaller set which we can then change
> dynamically and have the changes propagate through the job.

Boiling it down into that "all in one solution", geared towards a specific job,
may help in getting out at least some time to tweak results artistically?
Not by relying on something monilithic or a black box but by optimizing
things down to the parameters you know need to be consistent, exposing
only the parameters you need for tweaking? Would you like such a thing?

Having ways of cutting down on repetitive tasks, using some sort of macro
or spreadsheet approach to transfer and manipulate settings, shaders or
whatever from a (fixed up, corrected, revised) sampleshader over to
other properties or scenes? Like using Gator but for every desired input?

ThereÂs of course ways to using reference models or a shader DB but
personally I stay away from trying to automatically swap out things and
would prefer to have personal/visual quality control instead of updating
a setting and suddenly realize I broke all my scenes by deleting a shader...

tim

P.S: Given the current development in 3D, I wouldnÂt claim I know the one
and only route to success, as success (in my case) hasnÂt happened yet...
I mean, itÂs worth and valuable if there is diversity to pick from, both in
approaches to how a material is laid out and workflow develepments,
testing all sorts of mutations could help in coming up with something stable?




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "kim aldis" <kim(at)aldis.org.uk>
To: <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 10:18 AM
Subject: RE: Replacing the shadertree? Possible?


> It occurs to me that this looks like I'm dissing the tek2shoot shader. I wasn't, 
> it's a fine shader. What I was trying to say was that often the all in one solution 
> isn't enough.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On
> > Behalf Of kim aldis
> > Sent: 28 June 2006 23:19
> > To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
> > Subject: RE: Replacing the shadertree? Possible?
> >
> > Can it make a sort of stripey, greeny, marbly sort of thing. With
> > splodges. And maybe a couple of holes, with a client breathing down
> > your neck who can change his mind on a sixpence and thinks green is too
> > blue?
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On
> > > Behalf Of Thomas Helzle
> > > Sent: 28 June 2006 23:14
> > > To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
> > > Subject: Re: Replacing the shadertree? Possible?
> > >
> > > The solution is in reach:
> > > If anyone missed this amazing new material
> > > http://www.tek2shoot.com/content/view/29/27/
> > > Please have a look.
> > > It combines a lot of what we are talking about here into one shader.
> > >
> > > - Instead of separate shaders for each highlight-flavor you have a
> > > dropdown to select the one you need.
> > > - Instead of those cheap archaic highlight solutions (phong, blinn)
> > > only, it has Lafortune built in that really looks like light
> > > reflections instead of painting just dots.
> > > - It combines physical accurate surface simulation with all the older
> > > models.
> > >
> > > For me, it will replace about 20 or more of XSIs nodes in my everyday
> > > work.
> > >
> > > And it is very fast too.
> > >
> > > It reflects perfectly what I need everyday: On one hand, I need
> > > "Steel, Gold, Glass, Paint" - I don't want to spend half an hour with
> > > basic archaic nodes to get it right, but just slap a shader on it and
> > > be done. There are many materials like these that are very well
> > > defined anyway.
> > > Then I have more special needs where I need to tweak a lot. Again,
> > > with this node I see all the possibilities to mix and connect like I
> > > want to.
> > >
> > > My first test after playing with the shader for 20 minutes:
> > > www.screendream.de/stuff/T2S_illumination_Glass_v0001.jpg
> > >
> > > Wow, this tool is hot.
> > >
> > > Now I just have to find out how I can make this the default material
> > > :-
> > > )
> > >
> > > I am deeply impressed by this shader. Thanks a ton for this fantastic
> > > plugin to the people at Tek2Shot!
> > >
> > > Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Thanks....
> > > ... ok I'll stop now ;-)
> > >
> > > Thomas Helzle
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:36:47 +0200, Andy Jones <andy(at)thefront.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > It sounds like what you're talking about is a sort of "shader
> > wizard"
> > > > that just helps you design a shader.  This is something we've
> > talked
> > > > about for quite a while, as a way to get more people shading
> > despite
> > > > the additional complexity of our custom multi-pass shader trees
> > that
> > > > tend to change per job.  In lieu of actually doing that, we
> > > eventually
> > > > just implemented a system for translating standard shaders into
> > > > valid shader for the current job by creating a library of metadata
> > > > about
> > > how
> > > > all the inputs of shaders should be interpreted, even if they have
> > > > different names.  The problem is that artists still do weird things
> > > > with the base shaders that don't really translate into something
> > > > reasonable and organized.  And sometimes we get things dialed by
> > eye
> > > > that are just downright wrong.
> > > >
> > > > Ultimately, what has benefited us far more is to find ways to
> > reduce
> > > > the building blocks of the shaders to a smaller set which we can
> > > > then change dynamically and have the changes propagate through the
> > job.
> > > By
> > > > doing this, we reduced the amount of work required to do shading
> > for
> > > a
> > > > job and were able to leverage more talent and technical prowess per
> > > > shader than we could before.  Basically, what I'm saying is that
> > > there
> > > > would be tremendous benefit on even just medium scale productions
> > to
> > > > having some sort of macro engine so that the work done by technical
> > > > types could be used in an intuitive way by artists within the
> > > > context of a particular show.  Sort of like if there were an easy
> > > > interface for creating shader phenomena (which maybe there will be
> > very soon).
> > > >
> > > > Wizard-like tools would still be very useful for people I'm sure.
> > > > These aren't mutually exclusive concepts at all.
> > > >
> > > > -Andy
> > > >
> > > > Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> I did not argue for a layer-based approach instead of a tree-based
> > > approach, I argued for new tools where the material is described by
> > > combining elemental, artistic properties together instead of
> > > programming functions.  Some of these functions may be complex and a
> > > single conceptual connection between two could mean dozens of
> > > connections at the low implementation level.  For fudging the
> > results,
> > > artist might use tools like paint the shadows and highlights in 3D,
> > or
> > > position a gradient with a manipulator in the 3D viewport. It just
> > > means that the problems are addressed in different ways, not so much
> > > based on how it has to be implemented.   The tech people always get a
> > > sense of panic that power will be taken from them any time these
> > > discussions occur, but they generally end up benifiting from
> > > additionnal tools to play with, and more time to as the mundane stuff
> > > begins to work out-of-the-box.  btw I don't know the plans in XSI,
> > but
> > > it should be interesting to see how mental r!
> > >  ay!
> > > >  '!
> > > >> s metaSL will impact the more technical needs.
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>> -----Original Message-----
> > > >>> From: Tim Leydecker
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Hi Luc,
> > > >>>
> > > >>> itÂs true, everything that can be laid out flat and painted
> > easily
> > > >>> across meshborders without any seams is an artists dream.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> But nodes for condition state of an object/selection are as well,
> > > >>> the angle two objects have, the distance in a relation to
> > > >>> something else, the lightintensity at a certain point, the
> > > >>> viewingangle all those bits also help in getting the best out of
> > > >>> that perfect pink nailgloss painted on previously. ItÂs also
> > great
> > > >>> if you donÂt have to repeatedly refresh it whenever you add a
> > > >>> layer, e.g. you share a common texture support or UV set, picked
> > one, new color done.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> IÂd therefor really wouldnÂt want to limit things to a layer
> > > approach.
> > > >>> Actually, I hardly ever layer textures in Maya on a specific
> > > channel
> > > >>> but do often layer entire materials, or misuse a material to get
> > > the
> > > >>> illuminated areas (including the parts partly occluded by shadow)
> > > as
> > > >>> a way to select areas and do another operation on those.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >> [...]
> > > >>
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