[Bf-committers] Material Panel Proposal

[ervin weber]

Hi all,

I want to show you a proposal for the Material Panels regarding
handling of nodematerials. Even if it's not the perfect solution, I
think it's a step in the right direction.

A patch, an image and a py script to test directly in Blender are
provided here:

http://projects.blender.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=25939&group_id=9&atid=127

What the patch does:

* Adds a new panel: "Render Pipeline Options" bringing together the
   material properties that belong to the pipeline level. Those are the
   properties not mixable in material nodes.

* If use_nodes is enabled, it adds a new field under the material
   selector showing the selected material node, or a label telling you
   that none is selected.

* If no node material is selected, it hides the panels containing the
   node material's properties

* If use_node is enabled and a node material is selected, it adds a
   NODETREE icon in every header of panels containing node material's
   properties. The panels containing the base-material options remain
   unchanged

Discussing in IRC I got positive feedback except for the last point.
Icons in headers are a bit ugly, but the need remains for showing the
user what properties are of basematerial and what of node material.
So I welcome better ideas :)

I look forward for your comments, thanks.