Ace- I understand having lots of nodes allow for control and flexibility, but there are shaders that feel redundant like the Glossy and Glass shader. Node setups can get really messy when you have to repeatedly use Mix nodes just
to add simple shader together. Mental Ray & Vray have their standard shader which contains the basic effects like diffuse,refraction, and reflection.
As for the Ubershader, I find it to be unpredictable and difficult to work with in a scene. I’ve seen videos on the creation of the Ubershader and know what it can achieve but I wouldn’t mess with it! Maybe a lighter version of the shader would be preferable.
Heh… If you don’t like the current Blender interface, then please … be my guest! … try Blender 2.49! :eek:
In all seriousness:
Blender is, by its nature, a very sophisticated, complex, and powerful computer program.
There are only so many things that its designers can do, to strike a good balance between “usable” and “approachable.” (Every such decision is going to be a compromise!)
When you approach this program for the first (few hundred-thousand … :rolleyes: ) time(s), you are going to “take a sip from the fire-hose.”
… plan accordingly! … :yes:
“And so, now, with all that out of the way …” Since this is open-source, “guess what!” There’s a user-interface design/improvement project out there!
Get involved! If you’ve got a good/better idea or point-of-view, you can actually do something about it. (And who knows … maybe your name someday will be “up in lights.” Or, maybe they’ll just be shooting out those lights. Fame is fleeting …)
The ‘mess’ can be easily contained with group nodes, you can also use frame nodes to denote sections with a caption that shows exactly what that part does. Even with the group nodes there are some new interface features that allow you to have multiple areas of inputs and outputs that are near the spots that use them.
Also, I don’t think Glossy and Glass are truly redundant (just that Glass is a multi-closure, or a shader with multiple components which it uses for the reflectivity part). Even then we have a refraction shader which is just the refraction so you can use that to build your own glass shader with custom fresnal (very useful if you need glass that’s easier to see through than the default).
One needs to know that there’s some shading effects that simply would no longer be doable if the shader nodes were combined (theoretically you would still be able to do most of them, but the fact you can’t just use individual components mean that you’re potentially wasting a lot of calculations which would increase rendering time).
Something to think about is that if materials are handled as a basic preset only at first, many people will avoid going further than that, and then all the shaders will look the same. Even with photo realism as the goal, textures need to be carefully worked out to keep things from looking mundane, and I don’t think an ubershader is the be all,end all for materials in Cycles even as much as it will help speed up set up on many things.
Ubershader is a fake idea of simplify, I think about a vRay material on C4D, for understand how that particular material works I need open 50 menu and others 100 submenu.
With simple node based material I have an idea of the shader just a look, also if the scene is old or if the works is not mine.
Yeah no, its not a “fast way to complicate everything thinking to simplify”, which I guess translates to “dumbing it down”.
Artists often need to pump something out fast, whether its for a matte painting or to show a client, dynamic shaders that allow for consolidated forms of input are both a time saver and a liberating feature for artist. Some people, probably like yourself, like to keep things as complicated and arbitrary as possible, but its not good for the end user.
If you dont like the concept of an ubershader, dont use it. Its simple. Dont ruin the party for everyone else.
Ideally what would be nice is the ability to load other types of shaders based on the users needs as well. In maya I often make use of a nice collection of cgfx shaders one can find on the interwebs.
I think most people just give up on Blender because it just wasn’t what they were looking for!
e.g They must have wanted a game engine so they started learning how to use Blender, but Blender is more optimized for 3D modelling, they must have realized this after going through some tutorials and then just given up!
I think that is that is the essence of adallafontana point. that the ubershader in trying to be an all encompassing shader overcomplicates things. In an attempt to account for all possible use cases you end up with a shader that has many inputs when you could actually be much quicker if you used a set of simpler shaders and not the ubershader.
So instead of 1 ubershader you could build 5 simpler more focused shaders so like a glass, metal, plastic,metallic car paint and some other dielectrics you can think of.
Craig Jones- presets are okay to have, Vray and Mentalray both cater to the idea of having quick accurate settings to produce
certain types of surfaces. I thinks it’s up the artist to take the initiative to push the shader settings even further to produce a
unique image.
I’m not really trying to put down the Ubershader, I just think it’s not fluid as it can potentially be. I think cycles shaders should have
at least a basic shader composed of a diffuse, reflection, and refraction settings, with the ability to connect additional shaders
if needed! I find that constantly using Mix nodes and Add nodes takes up too much time. I know cycles is still very young and has some growing to do but it would be great if those changes would be implemented.
It seems that Blender alone has grown exponentially- yet Cycles has been left in the dark with lots of catching up!
You can also rename all parameters like you want in the quick way.
How many materials you need SSS, 3 layers of specular, 2 layers of diffuse, anisotrophic,… together?
Boh! For me less parameter I have to read, less confusion I have in my scene.
To my understanding dedicated shaders always run much faster than node groups.
Mental Ray also offers all the individual building blocks as well as ueber shaders.
And specifically when for example you do not do nodes a lot or often a simple basic shader
but in that moment be more productive.
This does not mean uebershaders should replace nodes, but they offer a certain usability
for a certain user scenario.
When I did a workshop on LookDev with Noah Vice (Ironman1 & 2, Avatar, etc) he used the mia_material_x_passes for just about everything. He did demo how the nodes worked though (Maya/MR).
Actually, I can very easily see the arguments for both points-of-view … and … well, being “in the software biz” for as long as … never you mind, 'enry 'iggins! “These kids today…!” … :ba: … I do not find the two of them to be in any way “mutually exclusive.”
Sometimes, you need to write a computer program. (And in that case, you need the ability to write one!)
Sometimes, you need to “get sh*t d-o-n-e, rightnow!” If you don’t haveto “write a computer program” to “GSD,RN!!!” … then, by gawd, you shouldn’t have to! If there’s a “well-known common ground,” then that common-ground should be made drop-dead-easy to get to. (That’s what digital computers are for!)
There’s plenty of room for both. And, in the Blender system, there’s enough room to implement both.
Now I’m confused! The ubershader shown in the video and as far as I know the only ubershader being talked about is a very large nodegroup. Lots of nodes that do almost nothing.
Except that OSL is slow, if the shader not already written into Blender, I suspect from the names and functions of some of the recent shaders it is. In other words it is nice to use if it’s the only way but the render times are long.
When I first downloaded blender, I tried to follow a really poorly written tutorial on creating a snowman. Although I almost achieved, I had no idea how to move an object to where I wanted it to be, nor did I know about extruding etc…
It annoyed the hell out of me that I couldn’t do it, so deleted it in a rage. But I did follow blender for a few months after, and then decided (after watching tutorials without blender installed) that I wanted to try again. This time, the first thing I did was model a human head. The first one was awful, but then I found a decent tutorial, and within a couple of days, I had actually modelled a head, complete with ears etc…
You can see the final result of that by looking at my sith lord in my Signature. If you can live with the frustration of Blender, its actually a wonderful piece of software. If you are easily annoyed, or are not prepared to be patient, then Blender isn’t necessarily for you!
i think we can see that there is a stiff learning curve
but you need to start in steps like it was suggested in wiki and other tut sites
you need to start with the basics things
many peopels don’t even take the time to read or practice the basics like how to add a simple primitive and begin to modify it
learn how to move or scale things ect
and they try to do complicated things immediately
and it won’t work you get loss cauae you don’t find things needed to model in 3D with blender
the learning process has to follow a certain logical path so it makes sense and time to learn how blender works
it was same problem in 2.49 it does not matter what the GUI is you still have to learn where to find things like tools and learn how to use these tools!
also some peoples don’t have a brain wired for 3D so they will quit very quickly cause they cannot follow things in 3D
on a screen but i guess this is a minority !
I remember in a company where i worked we tried to teach draftpersons (autocad ) to learn how to work in another soft in 3D and many of them failed.
The 3 dimensions was too much too many new commands compared to the old 2D system!
If there’s a “well-known common ground,” then that common-ground should be made drop-dead-easy to get to. (That’s what digital computers are for!)