Does blender 2.8 will have smart material like 3d coat and substance painter?

Does blender 2.8 will have real time smart material like 3d coat and substance painter ? or there any news about that will be in any future version ? i just tried 3d coat smart materials and i found that nice but not good in baking like blender 3d blender can bake the full scene with all details 3d coat have a good smart material option but not good like blender in baking i think blender will be better then him in that if it’s get her smart materials options

Well if Blender is going to stay in step with current texturing technology, yes. But I think Eevee will move that forward quite a bit. The question you have to ask is, should Blender try and up the anti as far as things like texturing and sculpting or should it remain focused on animation and rendering? I think it would take a lot of resources to turn Blender into a state of the art texture program that competes with Substance, 3D Coat and Mari. Is this something we really care about?

Personally I think Blender should loose the old idea that it is an “end to end” solution. And rather focus on pushing the envelop in areas that will continue to bring more users from Maya and 3D Max. I have nothing against AD. Just that competition is always good. And I would like to see Blender offer that. With some love in the animation pipeline, good animation layers system and so on these, along with real time rendering and improved Cycles is the way to go. And we still need a lot of improvements with nodes and modeling etc.

Let other apps like Zbrush and Substance/Mari take care of that end. Blender is a long way off from turning users away from those apps. Especially considering the licencing is fairly rational and inexpensive.

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Fully agree Richard.

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I disagree!

Even if Blender is not the best in some parts (texturing, sculpting), it’s not that bad and that do the work.
Removing those part could only make blender less used.

For example, with the node editor blender could do the same as Designer, not as good but if the devs give it some thoughts, that can be really great since it’s really similar.
The sculpting part, even if it’s not as good as ZBrush is much better than Maya/max for example and having Dyntopo is an essential part of modelling workflow (presculpt>retopo>uv’s>final sculpt).

IMHO, when 2.8 will be finished, devs should work on the core features of Blender, finish the painting with PBR/UDIM support, give more love to the sculpting part with layers/performances etc.

If they keep those features like they are now, indeed, they will die and it will be bad.

They must do both, improve the core features and increase the connection between software.

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@pitiwazou, Agree…
Being “the best” seems a stressful goal imposed by unhappy societies obsessed with success. Societies that live with an implicit imposition of: “If you are not the best, you are like garbage”.

It is not necessary to be “the best” to be good and useful.

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Sorry for deviating from the initial topic of smart materials, but I agree with Pitiwazou regarding Blender’s sculpting capacity. Blender sculpting needs some updating, but Dyntopo is a great concept sculpting tool. I often use it before auto-retopologizing and finalizing in ZBrush.

What I’d love to see added to the Blender sculpting arsenal is this:

• A Move Topological brush.
• An alternate smoothing algorithm that maintains volume, like the alternate smoothing algorithm in ZBrush.
• A Dynamesh-like function. Basically an improved version of the Remesh modifier that can be executed while sculpting.
• A solid quad-autoretopology option.

The remedy modifier is pretty close with the right settings… mot as good at removing internal geo but pretty similar! I wrote a script to add it and remember the coffee level then apply. Lost now but it wasn’t hard!

Hi Mike,

Sorry, I meant the Remesh modifier. :slight_smile: Corrected it.

Remesh is not bad, but it can’t compare to Dynamesh. Remesh loses details, can’t cope with tight corners, etc… To fix that you have to up the poly count to an unworkable level.

Is Remedy an add-on modifier, or did you also mean Remesh?

I also agree that being the best really isn’t needed for a feature to be useful! The base functions are so very close in blender… it wouldn’t take much to push them further. It’s why I’m interested in the possibilities of blender 101. I can see it being really useful to optimise blender for specific tasks, e.g. texture painting and sculpting. With good presets and good asset management blender could leap forward

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I sure as hell don’t and i doubt it is even possible. These tools have a head-start of a couple of years. Mari was built by Weta to make Avatar and it is built for the movie and vfx industry. Substance is resolution independent and non-destructive. They have found their niche and get developed further, i doubt the Blender Foundation can get there without wasting huge amounts of resources it doesn’t even have.

I have a lot of hatred for AD. 3 letters: XSI

So yeah i agree totally with you here. Stop that bullshit ‘one tool to rule them all’ philosophy. It might impress hobbyists and amateurs but not the rest.
Blender should focus on the fundamentals: modelling, unwrapping, animation. Maybe even sculpting.
Reach the VFX platform reference standard.
And further down the road: all nodes.

Nobody talked about stopping development on these features.
The question is to what extend. I totally agree with your last statement, but i think actually competing with specialized tools like Substance, Mari and Z-brush is a waste of time and energy.
The painting tools should definitely be improved so that PBR/NPR realtime painting on UDIMS is possible.

You are mixing a social commentary in a discussion about tools which can be objectively quantified and qualified.
I totally disagree (not about the social commentary that is a right observation).
The thing is, its not about ego when i say i want to use the best tool for the job. Its not me inflating my ego because i associate myself with the tool, its simply a very pragmatic thing coming from my life experience.

I don’t want to waste time and energy.

I am an artist and i am limited in my expression by my abilities. After years of frustration and learning and growing I am not willing to accept any other limitation on my artistic expression. If the tool is not letting me do what i want to do it is unfit for purpose.
My time is limited. If i can get further with one tool in the same time, or get a better result, i want that tool.

For me, Blenders strength is based on its versatility.

Substance Painter will probably always be the better choice for only texturing.
But considering what is already available in blender it would be a pity not to gap the remaining bridges
to a basic smart material workflow.
Basic is the keyword, no particle simulated painting, etc.

A working cuvature node (derived from the bevel node) would elevate this already.
(Currently there is no way to distinguish convex/concave or am I outdated on this one ?)
So its likely Blender will improve its texture nodes further to enable basic smart materials at some point, yes.

Exactly.

@Romanji I don’t understand what you said, blender must not compete but at the same time, it must improve the tools.
If the tools are improved, blender competes with other software.

You are only one type of user, other can use what is inside blender and be happy with it.
I have a zbrush licence but I like to work on dyntopo and make most of my model on maya, even make some textures.

When I started to learn blender I saw that the features are no match for other software, but after few years, I like to have the possibility to make everything in blender, even if it’s not as good as zb etc.
All I want is the possibility to go between software as simple as possible and having improved tools like smart material can be useful.

I guess my reasoning was more based on resources Ton only has to code.

But this also makes sense

“IMHO, when 2.8 will be finished, devs should work on the core features of Blender, finish the painting with PBR/UDIM support, give more love to the sculpting part with layers/performances etc.”

I think my comment fits perfectly in what is being discussed. In addition you read this comment:

How much work would it be to bring Blender to the No.1 position in terms of modelling?
I mean Blender already is a very good modelling tool, but i can’t help but think there are things which could be better. Things like Modo’s falloffs, and some of the more advanced modelling tools from Max.
Revamping the UI and the viewport and all the stuff the BF is doing right now seems to me much more work than focusing purely on modelling tools.

You seem to be really interested in Blender being the best (or No.1)

So if Modo or Max are good at modeling, why spend energy on improving Blender in that regard? Just use those applications instead of Blender. (making reasoning analogy with what was expressed about ZBrush and Substance painter)

YAFU
Apples and Oranges.

Max, Modo, Maya, C4d, Lightwave and Blender are full fledged 3D DCC’s. Of course they are in competition to each other.
None of these are in direct competition with specialized tools like Z-brush, Substance, Mari, Nuke etc.
Except Blender, that tries to do it all, which is IMHO wrong.

The No.1 comment was a figure of speech. If there is anything Blender should aim for being the best than it is the core functionalities.
Since modelling is the beginning of everything in 3D maybe that is where the focus should be.

pitiwazou
I have my own personal standpoint, but i also try to look at it from the perspective of the industry and how Blender can gain market and become better.
Maybe you interpret “competition” differently as me. I am also not a native English speaker.
Blender should keep up, but not actively trying to outdo Mari and Substance since i think that is a waste of energy and nearly impossible.
Of course it should get better…the question is one of managing resources like money and developer time.

I’d rather have interoperability between tools than a feature in Blender which doesn’t hold up to an specialized tool.

well thats a question of use case need.

a full profile animation studio might need specialized software but there are also many cases where you only utilize certain tools or a software to a certain degree meaning you dont use it to its fullest potencial not touching everything it offers.

so if blender is perfect at modeling animation and rendering and also offers at a lower level painting sculpting and video editing it might actually be enough for what most people only need.

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Exactly! You have to think that everyone has different needs.
For example, the VSE and compositing are not better than Nuke or Premiere/AE but they are there and we use them.
Same for the BGE, a lot of people learn to make games on it.
Nut
The BF work on what they seem to be important, right now it’s the 2.8, after that who knows on what they will work, but I doubt they will invest a lot of money to compete with painter or zb, it’s not possible.

Like the bevel shader, maybe Bretch or another dev would like to add smart nodes, better
curvature or else, that can come soon or never.

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我认为只要提供在zb&mari&SP&UnReal等专业素质超强的软件之间无缝链接实时反馈插件就够了,就像3D-coatLink这个插件,Blender的核心优势就是全流程适用,而且独一无二的蜡笔2D绘画功能是Blender超前功能,其他软件已经有的优秀的功能,Blender应该思考以自己的方式创新而不是跟随.

Translated with Google Translate:

I think that providing a seamless link to a real-time feedback plug-in between professional software such as zb&mari&SP&UnReal is just enough. Like the 3D-coatLink plug-in, Blender’s core strength is the whole process, and the unique crayons 2D drawing function is B lender has advanced features, and other software already has excellent features. Blender should think about innovating instead of following in his own way.