I’m not being that original here, but since I keep seeing people asking about how to make this or that material with Yafray and I have the same problem too, I think is a good idea to set up a little YafRay materials library, just a dozen primary materials or so for starting.
I have modelled a default scene for that library, but I think that is better if people can get involved in making that default scene and deciding which one is the best. So the contest is only about getting that default scene.
My idea is to post everyone’s file, you can propose a new model or/and improve someone’s else, propose other lighting setups for the scene apart from what is already proposed, better views, other wall & floor textures, etc.
The idea is obviously taken from Maxwell Materials Exchange Point. They made their scene based on some wise principles, it is recommendable to read these principles if you want to participate:
http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/instructions.php
Anyway, a maxwell scene ripoff is not really necessary, we could introduce new factors in our scenes and try to be a bit original. For instance, in my scene I’ve included a concave surface which is shadowed by the main ball to see what are the material properties under those circumstances. I think that it is also important to keep the scene relatively easy.
This is my scene. I’ve included textures, the Inkscape sourcefile for the wall checkers, the yafray logo and of course the Blend file.
http://www.zshare.net/download/yafstandardmatscene-zip.html (unpack the Blender file)
PD: Crossposted in Blenderartist and YafRay forums, we’ll choose the winner from both. I’ll keep the contest going for a week, if there are a lot of feedback, the contest would last longer.