[Bf-funboard] Materials UI Overhall? Texture stack replace/modify

[David Silverman]

Cleaning up the UI for materials so that it makes sense should be a
priority.
I think the button window should be more flexible for dealing with
materials.

Take a look at the attached picture
http://www.pasteall.org/pic/381
(The top area is an example of ui in material tab when working
at the top level of a material node network. The two areas below are
mockups
of what a texture node might look like when editing in the materials tab)

When a user clicks on an input button (not value or slider), for
example specularity, some sort of dialog should appear allowing the user to
connect an existing node (via drop down menu?) or to create an input,
say a texture node. The materials area will then cease to display the
top node(material), but the texture node below it.

The user can move up and down the node hierarchy
using buttons. For cases of multiple outputs, a list
of outputs could be shown. I think a scrolling list of buttons
for output destinations could be used as a simpler alternative though, or
something like it.

 As long as there is an input to specularity, When the
user clicks on the input button, the Materials panel changes to display the
input
node selected. This method can make it possible to unify the button workflow
with the node
materials actually being under the hood.

 I imagine the material tab would work along similar lines as the "RNA
viewer" for showing data.

 As far as all the confusing things in the
texture area, they would no longer need their own place:
Settings would migrate to the nodes.

If you want to use a texture in more than one place:
 simply refer to it as an input in multiple places.

For some reason you need to use the same texture, but with different mapping
coordinates:
One image is used as input for two texture nodes. Each texture node
specifies its mapping
method and their outputs are used as inputs to whatever you are doing.

Where should those sliders that specify the strength of an effect go?
Perhaps the level above the input. (Example: Materials>specular = (specular
"strength" slider * specular input)

Strange cases to think about:
R,G,B value in an image are unrelated data that the user pases to different
settings (example: Spec, Bump, Refl)
Iv'e used this in production before. Saves setup time with importing files
if you pack them together
in a .psd or similar and can extract layers/individual colors/etc


I hope this gives some ideas when you are reworking the render UI.


Take a look at:
*Maya attribute editor. IT may be old hat, but it did a lot with little
space.
*3ds Max Material editor. It supports this "diving" into materials but
last time i used the software, it was a bit to busy of an interface,
and easy to lose track of what you are looking at
*How do other packages edit materials, especially node materials

Thanks
-David